How To Repair Wood Table Top Finish

I have the RH 1900 Boulangerie table in Salvaged Natural. I am in the process of using @hu 's method with GF High Operation Flat plus topcoats of GF Apartment Out Flat.

We had several water blotches on the original powdery terminate that dried with dark edges where the powder settled unevenly. Here's how I blurred those water spots @Deanna Moore and @rowell.

I took a clammy but very rung-out washcloth (no drips!) and dabbed / rubbed the darkest edges of the spots, and then brushed the edges with an old, dry toothbrush. This buffed out some of the dark lines.

After that, I used the same washcloth — which by then had picked up some of the RH brown powder — to buff away some more than of the finish from other parts of the table. It was more than of an art than a science.

I had some brown eye shadow in my bath that was a very close color match to the RH powder, and I used my finger to dab / rub some eye shadow onto the lighter areas. Information technology wasn't perfect, simply information technology helped to even out the smaller-sized spots. I would not recommend the eye shadow technique on large spots.

And then, I sprinkled the spent coffee grounds from my morning pot of java (a little clammy) over the light spots and rubbed them in a little. I also rubbed coffee grounds all over the whole tabular array like an exfoliating scrub.

I tried a tiny patch test under the table of Varathane Weathered Oak oil-based stain. I did not like how information technology made the edges of my blotch fifty-fifty darker, so I only used a teeny amount on the stick of a cotton swab (minus the cotton wool) to paint into some of the darker grains of pino where it had been nighttime prior to my water spills.

Attached is a photo of the before (L) and later on (R) — prior to polyurethane.