Renewed Table, Endless Play

My aunt and uncle made my little sister a table and chairs set, with mod podged Winnie the Pooh cutouts from a book, when she was young. It sat retired in my mother’s basement for over a decade. I asked her if I could have it to give it to my kids and she didn’t hesitate to say yes.

I took it out of the dusty damp basement and sprayed down all the cobwebs. I wiped them with a rag and loaded it up in my van. I had a vision for what I wanted to do with the table, but I didn’t know when I’d get around to it. For a while I left it as is and let the kids play with it in their space.

Until last night. I scraped off as much of the “Winnie the Pooh” decals I could. Finally opened the gallon of paint and started on with it. (the paint was leftover from our downstairs walls when we moved in so it didn’t cost us anything) I couldn’t get all of the images off and I’m impatient, so my job was half-ass. My husband told me I should have sanded it down first. So this project may end up having to be done a second time.

I put the first coat on last night and this morning I put on the second coat. For now (until we end up redoing it in the future) it has 2 nice clean coats of paint and it definitely revitalized it and brought it back to life. Instead of keeping it downstairs in the kids space, I moved it upstairs so I can make sure it’s not being mistreated. After all it is a part of not only my sister’s childhood, but my own as well. (I remember playing kitchen and reading books at the table with my little sister when I was young)

Here’s what it looked like before. Very dingy and stained from being in a basement.

This is after. It looks great!

The kids have shown more interest in it now than they did when it was downstairs. They have been playing with it non-stop for pretend tea parties, restaurant and just sitting at it chatting. I love the imaginative interaction it is giving them.

Tea party set was a custom made set I ordered for my daughter’s 6th birthday in 2012 from Drumming Beetle. My daughter always kept it tucked away instead of playing with it and now she’s letting her younger siblings enjoy it. I’m glad to be seeing it in action once again.