My uncle had a little workshop behind my grandparents’ house, and he liked to work with wood. He made a few items, mostly from kits, I believe.

He made a table once, which he gave to my father. I grew up eating at it. And that thirty-odd years of eating, banging, scratching, and spilling took its toll.

The shine muted long ago, and the color itself was disappearing here and there. It was a functional table, but little else.

When my mother decided they needed a new table, my wife’s and my impending return served as the perfect excuse.

“They’ll need a table! We’ll give this one.”

K loved it immediately. Yet, on more than one occasion, she showed it was a strangely conditional love: “If only you could refinish it.” Though I’d never undertaken anything even remotely similar, it seemed an easy enough job.

It was. But time consuming. Not to mention irritating, literally.

First there was all the sanding, with the accompanying, irritating dust. Getting it to a “raw” state took a couple of afternoons of sanding.

Sanding with a rotary sander is an art, I discovered. Like so many things, it requires a bit of pressure, but not too much. It requires patience, and a willingness to go over the same area again and again. And again and again. In other sanding projects, I applied too much pressure too quickly. The results of that afternoon of sanding feel like a relief map of central Poland: a few little bumps, but mostly flat.

Too much aggression and you wind up with scratch marks that are visible only with the first coat of stain. Which is why I had to start over with the table top itself — even 400 grit sand paper can leave unsightly marks if you go against the grain.
Once the sanding is done, the only truly easy part: staining. I soon discovered that even when working outside, I am so sensitive to the chemicals wafting through the air that a respirator was an absolute necessity.

After staining comes the real opportunity for true disaster: applying polyurethane. It certainly cannot be done outside. Polyurethane is a magnet for dust. If there’s no garage, a second bathroom is critical.

Once everything was reassembled, the feeling of accomplishment gave a high nearly as good as the initial, respirator-less staining. A glistening, beautiful table where once a ragged piece of — let’s be honest — junk once stood.

“Oh, what a table,” I remind K from time to time. She looks up with a smile and says, “Yes, you did do a pretty good job.”

At least we’ll have something to pass on to our children…