thrifty turquoise dining table redo {before and after}

We always joke that it's such a good thing we only buy used furniture because with four young children we pretty much destroy every single thing we own. :) I'd hate to have spent full price for that to inevitably happen! ;)

We bought this counter-height table {used} on Craigslist about 5 years ago- it came with 8 bar stools and a center expansion leaf. It was a really popular style at the time, so we were thrilled to pay only $375 for a table set that would fit in our old dining room and hold all of our growing family. It barely fit in our teeny nook, but we squeezed it in, and we loved it.

Five years later, it was in pretty terrible shape after being abused daily as our kitchen island table.  :D Here's what it looked like when we started last weekend:

We bought a new table top to replace the now ruined mdf top it came with {can you see the cardboard effect coming through?}, because we loved the way the table looked in our kitchen and didn't want to replace it. But we have to cut the new top down, so we went ahead and repainted the old top until that project happens. Here is the table with a coat of primer. It's pretty in white:

But I had more colorful plans... ;) Thankfully the hubs was willing to oblige {such a good man!}, and pulled out his paint sprayer to make it look beautiful and smooth.

Here it is with a sprayed on coat of oil-based paint from Behr {called Tropical Waters}. It's a deep but bright turquoise color.

And here it is all finished in the kitchen:

I'm in love! :) The pictures ended up a tad brighter than it is in real life, but I think you can get a good idea of what it looks like. We left the all-wood chairs black for now, because the abuse clock starts all over once you paint them. ;) But eventually they will get a coat of a different color. :)

I'm not sure how well the new paint will hold up to daily abuse, but we'll see how it goes! I love how the oil-based hardens and holds up on our other painted DIY projects, so I'm hoping we have great luck with this one too!

Have you ever painted your kitchen table? How did it hold up?

Did you ever buy a counter-height table too? :) 
I still love how tall our table is! Though it was harder early on to have little kids that couldn't get down easily, we use it every day in the kitchen.

Do you find that your kitchen table is the hub of your home? 
We always end up congregating around it when we have company over too! There's just something about the kitchen... :)