Wax On, Wax Off {Or…A Dining Room Table Update}

You all know that I LOVE my new dining room table. Love it!

But it became apparent rather quickly that it needed to have some kind of seal on it. Leaving a glass on it that sweated would leave rings. All over the place! We  couldn’t even get through dinner without water rings developing. I had come to the point of even reaching behind me and putting my glass on the sideboard during meals just to prevent the water rings!

Now – that’s kind of frustrating when you spend a chunk of money on a brand-new piece of furniture.

But then I remembered Janell from House of Fifty had ordered a brand-new table that ended up being way off from what was pictured. She put a lot of work into it, sanding it down, etc. But her last step was to seal it. So I popped over to her blog to see what it was she had used. And the funny thing? She had just given an update on how her table was holding up! {You can read her thoughts over here.}

The wax she used and recommended was Briwax in clear, so I ordered some from Amazon and thought I’d give it a try. I was hoping that applying the wax over the water rings would help them disappear.

Here’s a shot of what the table looked like before.

And check out all these water ring marks. Ugh.

Here’s the table after one coat of wax {and apparently, the chandelier was on because the table looks a little orange}.

Not much different, right? Yay! That’s what I want! I didn’t want the wax to change the table, just seal the table. So it makes the table a tiny bit shiny, but doesn’t change the color.

But…… It didn’t do a whole lot for the water rings.

Bummer.

I’ll tell you in another post what I did about those water rings. You’re going to LOVE it! So easy! {Okay, so I may not get around to the full blown post anytime soon – so the secret is mayo. Yep! Smear some on, let it sit, wipe it off. Gone are the rings!}

But anyway… I put on two coats of wax on the table. It’s pretty easy to do. Takes a little elbow grease and some open windows. That stuff is STRONG! So please open windows, turn on fans, whatever if you’re going to be using it inside.

Basically, I used an old t-shirt rag and little bits of wax to rub it on the table. You don’t need much wax at all. With the first coat, I could feel the areas that were waxed and those that weren’t. Seeing the difference was difficult, but the wax made the tabletop so smooth.

I noticed after I got that coat on that the table seemed a little dull.

You know that means I had a slight freak out session, right??

But after reading the directions I learned I might need to buff it… Lol! I grabbed another t-shirt rag and buffed the table and it looked fab!

You can’t tell much of a difference, but here’s the after…

Pretty! See the slight sheen. Yay.

And – the best part….

To test it, I got the outside of a glass really wet and set it on the table.

And picked it up.

See the water beading on top of the wax!?! Yay!!! Before it would have soaked right in!

Now I’ll be honest, I have found other water rings since waxing the table. However, they don’t develop quite as quickly.So if I’m careful not to leave glasses sitting on the table all day, I should be good.

But! The secret water ring removal trick {or not so secret really} is keeping me stress free about water rings. It’s so easy!

So that’s the latest and greatest and pure honesty on the dining room table.

PS -There are a couple of Amazon affiliate links in this post. If you click and buy, I’ll make a couple of cents.