Next Step in the Kitchen Table Redo

I just finished the stripping/sanding part of the kitchen table redo.  It looks good!  The wood is a really cool color underneath the two or three layers of paint and stain it had on it. 

 This table has seen some serious use.  This is what the back of half of the table top looked like.  Pretty gross. I couldn't get the wood brace all the way off because one of the holes has a plug in it so I just had to let it swivel around while I stripped and sanded.

These are the finished base and table top pieces. Well, finished with taking off the old paint and stain.  It looks like the table was originally a light oak stain and someone stained it darker red brown at some later point.  Then the table top had the brown paint on it too. 

It was quite the job getting all of that off.  The table top was the hardest part.  I used stripper a couple times, but it didn't get all the paint off.  It did loosen it up though, so that was nice.  I didn't want to be near the stripper as I was worried about the fumes, so I did it outside and put it on really quick then stayed away while it did its magic.  After I used up the stripper I decided sanding would probably have better results and the wood is solid so I wasn't worried about it taking too much off.  Sure enough it worked like a charm.  Well, a very long and time consuming charm.  I worked on this all morning and it's 1:30PM now.  I don't really want to add up how many hours that means I spent sanding. :)  The good thing is that it is essentially done now.  There is a curved wood piece that goes on the underside of the table top that I have not finished, but all in good time. I'm done for today for sure.