There’s a TJ Maxx around the corner from my house, which is probably where I buy most of clothes while waiting for for my wife to shop. So, after I browse through the clothes and take the kids to check out the toys, the only thing left for me to do is to look at the furniture.
Usually, it’s junk but every now and then, they have some things that are actually made of wood and is usually acacia.
One day, I came across this stool. I forgot to take before pictures, but it really looked nothing like this. It was very blocky and looked unfinished, like someone took a machete and chopped out a basic shape and left it as that. And there were lots of white streaks of sap wood and it the wood was an unusual color too.
But, I liked the basic shape of it and I recently worked with wood dyes, so I thought I’d be able to even out the sap wood. I picked it up and proceed to wait for my wife to checkout.
Sometime much later, we were home and I sanded this thing for hours. I think I found out what kind of wood it was in between sanding breaks, but I have no idea what that was now. It was pretty soft so I kept going until it was smooth.
Then I applied a bunch of different wood dyes more than a few times to darken the sap wood but it was taking. Once this was dried, I applied some gel stains and later finished it with Arm-R-Seal, which is a light weight polyurethane that’s not too thick or shiny. And I think I finished it off with some paste wax, but I really don’t remember.
I think it turned out pretty good and it looks like a much more expensive piece that it is. But more importantly, my wife likes it now and I got a little better with wood dyes and refinishing.