How to whitewash - A make over of our second-hand dining table -

Right before our big move to our house last desember, my husband was given a laaaarge dining table from his workplace. There it had been used as a conference table. It was big, had rounded ends, metal legs and two extra feeder plates. It had a brown-orange-like color, not so bad. But it did not fit the style I was going for. But it would actually take me about six months before I did anything about it. Our kids use it for homework, playing, drawing, painting and we have our dinners there. So eventually it had sustained quite a lot of "injury" on the top. It had come to the point were I couldnt focus on eating my dinner anymore. All I saw was the staines and cuts on the table top. Something HAD to be done, soon!

This picture was taken at christmas last year, 

before anything was done with the table.

I really didnt know what to do with it, I just knew (and heard) that its not easy to paint a big surface like that without having all those brush strokes showing. Besides, I wanted an old and distressed look on the wood. So, my first thought was to sand it down and give it a turn with homemade staining. You know, the kind you make yourself. "Project sanding down insanely amount of wood" was on. My first thought was: "pft... I can do this with sanding paper! No problemo!" Way problemo!
It was too time consuming and my arms was killing me. So we had to find a sanding machine.
(should have done that the first time....) It made the work a lot better, but unfortunately, we still had to do a lot of manuell sanding to get all the way "in there".

Then, when I thought we had done enough sanding (obviously NOT), I startet putting on the DIY staining. I am shure this is a suuuuper good idea on light/new wood. But for this sucker, not so mutc. It was horrible! I even tried waiting several days to let the stain get settled. But that never happeden.
Burned-out furniture was not the look I was going for. So..... what to do?

Obviously, I had`nt done enough sanding. But at this point, looking at the results, 

I had given up...

I spent a couple of nights searching Pinterest for ideas and tips, and came up whit drypainting!
Obviously, there are different ways to do it, but I came up with the right formula for my paint.
I used 1 part paint and 1part water, stired it well and used a wide pencil and just slightly dipped the tip in the paint. Then I went bananas! Haha... Since there is only a tiny amount of paint on the pencil, I used a little force to get it on. Just brush it! Brush it reeeeaaal good! Up and down in big movements. And preferably without lifting the pencil halfway on the table. You want the pencil stroke to go all the way from one end to the other. A rag is allso a very good tool here to wipe of excess paint. Remember, its supposed to be dry!

See the difference?? The strips of light there is actually my chandelier.

Now, THIS is what I was going for!

I actually did this three or four times (I lost count...) before I was satisfied.
Now I had to come up with some thing to look it all in, and protect it against new injuries. I read up a little on that to, and the solution was simple. Floor lacquer. It is strong, sustainable and see-through. Perfect! Another good advise I was given her was to use the matt kind. Not the shiny one. Then the white paint most lightly will turn yellow! And we did not want that! Another tip here is to apply it with a roller! No brush strokes:)
After two coats of matt floor lacquer, it was done! And we had a shiny new dining table!
It was a lot of tryal and failing, but it was worth it in the end. And no it sits much better in our dining room. And it can take a lot of beating to, thanks to the lacquer!

Mutch better!

Have you ever tryed drypainting? What is youre experience with it?