"I hate this table"

Months and months ago I was finally fed up with our table. Aubree was starting to use the table space, and our table was about 6-8 inches narrower than most, so foodstuff never fit with our dishes. I wanted to get a 'new' one, and RD kept saying he thought we should wait till we move (into our own house, which who knows when will be). So it tried to just live with it, but also started stalking craiglist. I think RD soon realized I wasn't cool with waiting. Looking around at new sets, nohting around here was what I wanted, or in our price range. So, inspired by my desire to be self-sufficent/DIY-er like my parents and grandparents, I thought it'd be great to find a used set and make it how I wanted. Having been in a few different places, Boise craigslist really stinks comparatively. it's super expensive for people's used stuff here. And everyone has oak windsor chairs and pedestal tables, often in green. After more than a month of checking everyday, and missing one set that I liked by a few hours, I found two sets I liked well, and after agonizing over the decision for an embarassingly long amount of time, we came home with a set. I love the chairs, but the table is my second favorite shape.

Being only able to devote at most a couple hours a day to a project, and having only half a garage stall to use, it took the several months to get the chairs painted, add more foam padding, and recover.Which had several ups and downs. Fabric stain/water repellent stuff isn't really that effective for chairs, just to let you know. You might think you could use a light linen fabric if it's protected, but let me assure you, chocolate, crayon, and water paint still stains it.  After them, I hesitated on the table, since it had a tough thick finish, and thought it might be more than we wanted to tackle right now. But I thought I could at least do the legs, so that got done over a couple weeks. And kept sitting out there, not sure if I should commit to the top.
Then we decided to just do it while we have another table to use. This week I've been stripping it with Citristrip, and that finish was still on there! It was an armored table. it has been an intense week of work work work. The worst part was looking up stain colors/etc yesterday and finding a product that stains the polyurethane, so you don't have to refinish a table to change the color!
NNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
I was out there yesterday for about 4 hours working on the table, scraping the stripper off, cleaning off the citristrip, sanding, and retaping our sheeting around the legs (i know, we  should have done the top first) and RD was out there with me.

"i hate this table"
'me too'

summarizes our conversation.

but i have hope one day we will like it. which is sorta depressing, cause i don't know that I'll ever love it.  RD says next time we just buy what we want. but i think it might be cool to re-do our questionable bookcase from our newlywed days.....