The Table Saga

Andy purchased this table at our ward yard sale a year ago for 5 bucks. He thought he could strip it and refinish it--easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. After $100 worth of stripping stuff, several weeks of trying to get the industrial strength finish off, and many swear words in his head he broke down and rented a belt sander and sanded the crud out of it. He finally got all of the finish off and enlisted the help of a wood worker in our ward to get all of the edges squared up. A couple of coats of stain and he was ready to seal it up. The problem was it was November by this time and way too cold to apply the finish. So he wrapped it up and stored it in the basement. After the craziness of summer wound up he decided to break it out and finish it up. After 20 or so coats of polyurethane he felt it was ready. He brought it into the house to "cure" for a month...make sure it was nice and hard. Finally the day came when he set it up and we all admired his handy work! We ate dinner on it that night marveling at what a good job he did. The finish help up to dinner---SUCCESS! Unfortunately that's about all it held up to. After dinner Jaxon decided to draw some pictures and the pressure from the pen on the paper went right through all 20 layers of polyurethane and made a lovely scratch-picture on the table. It's hard to see on the photo above because of the flash but if you look real hard you can see a person drawn by Jaxon. Now we know why it was almost impossible to get the original finish off. My theory is it is because the wood is sooooo soft (pine). Andy is so disgusted I'm not sure what the plan is now. Strip it and try again or throw it away? So far it is still up and we are still using it but nobody can do their homework on it or do any sort of writing. We kept the old table so maybe when Andy gets done grieving he'll decide to swap it back out again. I'll keep you posted.
This has nothing to do with the table saga but it was quite a funny conversation held at said table. The subject of childbirth came up and Andy and I were explaining a very small inkling of what childbirth involves.
Jaxon says, "MAN, I'm glad I'm not a girl!"
To which Kelsi replies, "Well, I'm a girl."
J; "WELL, get ready for the PAIN!!!!!!"
K: "Well I won't have pain anymore."
J somewhat incredulously: "BABIES!!!!!!!!!"