Garden Center Table Rescue

A few months back, my wife saw this table in a really nice garden center near our house. It had bird houses and bird feeders on it for sale. It was also under a leaky water line so it had a considerable number of water spots. But my wife though it was "special" and that I could probably fix it. It was solid and heavy but had a lot of surface patches (character).

So she went to the manger of the garden department and asked if it was for sale. She told her no, it wasn't for sale. She said that they had others years ago, but because this one was damaged, they were using it in the store for merchandising; we went about our shopping and were approached by the store manager who asked us if we were still interested in the table. My wife said we were. The manager asked us what we were going to do with it. My wife explained to her that she had nominated me to refinish it and put it in our kitchen, and that the table in there now was too small for the space. The manager of the store told us they originally had 12 of these tables around 8 years ago and that this one was still here because it got damaged. She also went on to say that there were several employees that had gotten offers on it before but they didn't sell it. That day, we were lucky and they said they would sell it. She said it was special because there weren't that many made. The table was made out of solid Teak recovered from a Lake Michigan shipwreck and they didn't have the documentation on it anymore but if we would give it a good home, it was ours. She gave it to us for a nominal price and the rest is history.

It actually wasn't that much work. A few high grit sand blocks, an orbital sander and some teak oil and man she cleaned up nice. It was a great deal and it looks great in our kitchen.

@matthewwarn