Mistakes to Avoid When Refinishing Furniture

Anita Glenn Mead asks,

I finished my wood kitchen table years ago and had no problems with it. Then I scratched it, so I sanded it and put on about four coats of an oil-based polyurethane, allowing a day of drying in between each coat. Now it sticks if anything warm sits on it – coffee cups, plates, everything. I used the finish that was recommended at Lowe's. How can I fix this?

Our Answer

Unfortunately you'll need to go back to the beginning and sand the finish off, down to the original wood. For whatever reason, your new and old finishes are not getting along. You probably didn’t wait long enough between coats. Even though instructions might say polyurethane dries in as little as a few hours, in my experience it takes weeks to get hard. There's a good chance the coats underneath the top layer are not fully dry. So strip it all down and start again – and drop us a line letting us know how it goes!

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