Resurrecting a Table Set

Just before we moved into our new house (2 months ago) we bought a table off of craigslist: $75 for a solid oak wood table with an extension leaf and 6 chairs. It was definitely in need of some TLC.The veneer on the chairs was brittle and easy to peel off. The table had major stains and burns into the wood, and the upholstery was stained and dirty.

It became our work table for a few days. Then I got the itch to refurnish it. I'm still wondering what was wrong with my head. Here we are, barely moved into our new home that has a ton of remodeling projects needed and what do I do? Sell our perfectly fine (albeit, small) table and chairs to force us to refurnish the 'new' table asap. I thought it would take us a weekend to do...ha! It took us 6 weeks.

After taking off the veneer we found that one chair was completely eaten by termites! I began to wonder if this project was really worth it...
This is a 'before' picture, but after I had taken off the veneer. The first thing we did was take off the cushions and recover them with new canvas, followed by a clear vinyl for kid friendly use.

Still working on the chairs. Here's the termite chair after we added wood filler and sanded it down. Boy those termites had fun! We had to add wood filler several times because it kept sinking deeper into the cracks. Sanding the chairs took a looong time. Thanks a million to Carson, one of Zui's young men, who helped a lot on this project, as well as others around the house.
The first step to the table was to put on a paint stripper to get off all the old finish and polish. The stripper makes the finish bubble and easy to scrape off.
Next Zui took steel wool and scrubbed the table with laquer thinner to remove the last bits of finish. Then we sanded it down with a 60 grit and then 100, then 220.

Next we applied the stain. We used Red Mahogany to try to match the chairs that we were painting georgia clay (reddish brown).
So tired...most of our time working on the table and chairs was done between 9pm and 1am. Late nights, kids waking up at night, and early mornings made it hard to function during the day... not to mention we were still in the middle of several other necessary home remodel projects, plus trying to still unpack and keep up with cooking, laundry, and cleaning.
Staining from oak to red mahogany was a big contrast, but one that I'm happy with.
Getting closer... after we let the stain dry for 48 hours and applied a second coat, Zui applied the first of 3 coats of polyurethane finish. Inbetween each coat he sanded it lightly with 220 grit.
This table came with a cool Chinese motif. We weren't sure if we should stain it or leave it or spray paint it and glaze over.

We decided to leave the motif in the original oak color, but applied a chocolate brown faux glaze on top to help the design stand out.
After sanding...then priming....then spray painting...then top coating all 6 chairs we were ready to see the finished product!
It only took 10 seconds to realize that georgia clay does not match our new red mahogany stained table. Oh, I wanted to cry. Especially since Zui was the one that tried to talk me into painting the chairs leather brown instead of georgia clay in the first place...
Presto chang-o! Within the following week we took off all the cushions (again) sanded (again) and spray painted the chairs to leather brown, and then top coated...again...
and...VOILA! After many many hours of labor and many many cans of spray paint, we finally finished!!! Now we are enjoying our "new" big table :)