Two Tone Table

I've been quite busy lately and haven't had much time for furniture or diy projects.  Mark has left for grad school and will be gone for a whole year and a half (sad face).  We spent his last few weeks here spending lots of time together and with friends and family.  Now that he's gone, I have the whole house to spread out my drop cloths and tools and get to creating!  (I do miss him though, don't get me wrong!)

If you know me at all, you know I love garage sales. But, I'm pretty sure my mom loves garage sales EVEN more than I do.  She taught me well when she taught me how to hunt for a good bargain.  A few weekends ago, she picked up two tables for me to revamp at some sales in Bend.  This one is a solid narrow chair-side table with delicate lines.  She told me she "wouldn't mind having this one" in her house after I got done working my magic.  

Knowing this, I decided to paint the table base cream and leave the top wood so that it could easily fit into any room in her house.  The wood grain is beautiful (I think it is either Cherry or Alder) so I wanted to keep at least part of the wood exposed. I did have some difficulties with the staining process (you can see in the after picture that it is "blotchy" looking).  

Anyone have any tips on staining?  I think maybe part of the problem was that I didn't sand enough in the beginning. Here is the picture of the piece painted and sanded on the top, ready for staining and Stapler checkin' things out.  I did use a pre-stain conditioner that was supposed to help with the even absorption of the stain, but that didn't seem to help much.




And here is the after: 

I'm excited to see this in my mom's home, but until then I will enjoy it in my living room! It actually looks pretty great with my coffee table ;)

PS...the fabrics on the sofa are a sneak peak at what my new sofa will look like!  Excited!  You can see the stack of magazines holding my current one up if you look closely.