Refinishing Applaro Outdoor Furniture

If you don't own the Ikea Applaro furniture you might just want to skip this post!  If you do then you might have experienced my same frustration when your furniture started to chip after only one year.  This is totally my fault, we do not have a covered patio and I still bought a wood table.  I promise I did some research about the table and read that it holds up great.  Liars... JK, the OLD version of the table ages really nicely but the new way they apply the stain doesn't hold up as well.  See exhibit a:

The stain was flaking off which was weird to me... I thought stain would just fade.  After a couple BBQs at our house I decided I was too embarrassed to leave the table as is.  I was able to refinish the table and I am proud to say we are going on 2 years of it looking good!

The table is a little more golden then it use to be but I think it matches just fine.  I only refinished the very top of the table and left the stain everywhere else the same.  Recently, I snagged another piece of the Applaro furniture off Craigslist for $20.

I am fairly confident after seeing that picture I won't be getting any foot modeling gigs....

This is a storage bench that I plan on using as a coffee table to our adirondack chairs. This was on someone's covered apartment patio and it still started to flake.  Thankfully this update takes almost no time and holds up!  The first step was to sand the bench with my palm sander using 120 grit sandpaper.  This went so fast, Mack didn't even get a chance to start crying.  #momoftheyear

Then I used this stain from Home Depot.

I waited a full 24 hours then sprayed the piece with this sealer.

Annnnnnnnd that's it!

Will someone please come water my plants for me?  I'll pay you with cookies and baby hugs!!  In typical Leslie fashion, I am ready to paint the Adirondack chairs a different color.  They have only been turquoise for 2 years....  I'm thinking navy, white or grey.  I have fully jumped on the neutral bandwagon train.  Ridding my house of all color.  Except my Tall TAN Man.  xx

{Leslie}