Table Refinishing ~ Progress

I decided to share with you the progress in the renewal of the table. I know it's been three weeks since I started, but life has its rights (and each stain or paint layer  required  drying time).
Three weeks later  I'm ready to put a layer of poly to protect my hard work.
But starting from the beginning.
To remove old damaged finish I tried to use paint stripper, but without luck. I had to use heavy equipment: belt sander which end up with some over sanding in a few places (I know, I know I should use the random orbit sander, and be very careful), we found that the top of the table is covered with very thin veneer.

and this is the worst 

To deal with over sanding I decided to  use the whitewashing technique (in my case it was a gray washing)  and stain in  dark walnut, but either gray wash caused the stain does not penetrate the veneer, or  because this veneer is so thin that stain won't penetrate it. Here you can see how stain kind of sit on the top of the gray wash

 So I checked  Google and I chose  perhaps the most popular Gel Stain used in the  blog world: General Finishes Java gel stain. After a week and 4 layers applied with one or two day between coats  I have a very beautiful chocolate color of the table top

here base is sanded and ready for paint

which  I decided to paint using a paint bough  at Home Depot found  on mistined paint shelf in a warm gray, which is very close to the color of our kitchen island. But this I'll show in next post, when it is finished.

            Till next time, Jadwiga