Here is your old thread:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6367171/how-can-i-fix-this-table

I’ve refinished quite a bit of furniture and finally bought an electric orbital sander. It sure makes things easier.

How were you able to find it, Jilly? None of my old posts are showing up on my activity page.

Someone, I forgot who, said to type in houzz in place of gardenweb when looking up comments or posts.

So I went to your profile and this url came up — erase gardenweb, and add houzz instead, then click on Activity:

Change this:

To this:

"...type in houzz in place of gardenweb when looking up comments or posts."

A-HA! That worked! But to find old posts pertaining to plants and such that are not one's own, need to be in GW. Aaargh!

DH does have an orbital sander, shouldn't be any problem to sand it down. But yea when I re-read my old post, someone brought out the distressing aspect to it and how painted isn't the best look with distressed wood -- although that isn't what's bothering me, it's the plastic-y look to it.

Houzz in its "wisdom" has not made this a PITA to find old threads and like you we often want to go see an old thread or a duplicate . As for the table do a primer then use what ever paint you want . If you have a space that is dust free with no air movement you can spray it too.

You know what you might try OP, is to just take a very fine sandpaper to it - just enough to knock off the gloss, maybe 400 - 600 grit (?) Experiment on out of the way spot. But if the problem is the paint itself - yeah I agree ordinary gloss or semi paint looks and feels too "plastic." Well actually acrylic IS a plastic LOLOL. Advance is water borne alkyd, which more closely replicates hard old style oil enamel. Agree that the orbital sander is the way to go - flat surfaces like that should take no time at all. Get off as much old paint as you can, use recommended advance primer.

I’ve painted tons of furniture and just give it a quick clean with denatured alcohol before painting. I usually use whatever paint I have left over from projects.

Yes the prep work is key; sanding ,priming and several coats of paint. But after all that you will still get that flat color effect just in a different color. If you want color variation that takes some different techniques that take some brush skills or elbow grease.

The quickest method would be a glaze or color washing in a darker or light shade.( Deep blue green would look good on that table) I think there are some rub on paste like products for that or if your brushstrokes are good just a dry brushing. this isn't a tough finish so a good clear sealing top coat would be needed.

The more labor intensive method is stripping it down to the woodgrain. It's lots of work stripping, sanding, staining then sealing. I have quality furniture that was abandon to the curb due to a botch paint job that I restored this way.

Or throw a tablecloth on it, lol.

That table should be stripped. Painting over a heavy enamel will give you more of what you already have, just thicker and uglier. It's not a very handsome table and looks like a workbench, you may not want to invest the time and money into that form factor, however. Should you decide to do it, a scraper is the key, down to bare wood, not sanding and stripping.

"It's not a very handsome table..."

Well, it used to be before I fiddled with it... :0/