So these people have this Pine trestle-table they've had for years, and want it refinished. I admit to being a wood snob, and suggested that since it was just Pine, they could apply it against the cost of heating (by the simple expedient of placing it, disassembled, into the fireplace...)
This did not earn me any Brownie points, so I shut up then.
Turns out it has sentimental value. I could tell, since it was so badly beat up....
What I finally decided to do was put solid Walnut around it, thereby increasing the size, plus some inlay work to dress up that cheap Pine. This was WEEKS ago.
I have been waiting for these guys to figure out what kind of stain they wanted, and just a little while ago, they brought over a "sample" of the wood treatment they liked....basically, it looks as though the surface was finished by scoop-jawed Hedgehogs, who also had a spastic condition, then lightly sanded, and stained with a hilariously dark stain, and sealed in what appears to be bar-top plastic....
It is the kind of surface that woodworkers of about 200 years ago were forced to live with, since they often didn't have any decent tools out on the prarie...or maybe all they had were these hedgehogs.
The effect, BTW, they described as "distressed"....which is all the rage nowadays. Yeesh!
I really hate to mess up that gorgeous Walnut, but hey, it's their table...they're paying for it...but just in case they come to their senses someday, I am doing it all in such a way that it can be re-surfaced....
For which I will charge them a
fortune!! 
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