Furniture

It’s always the projects that are supposed to be easy that turn out to be the biggest pains in the you-know-what.

That was precisely the case for this little bench.  Though she looks lovely now, she put up quite a fight to get to looking this way.  

She came to me from my mom and dad’s garage, looking a little neglected and unappreciated. Clearly someone wasn’t paying attention when they let acid (or maybe just water) seep into the top and leave an awful ring and splotch mark!
I sanded her down and applied a coat of gel stain in dark walnut, and the ring and splotch mark went away, just like magic.  Once that dried, I applied another coat of gel stain to darken the finish. Everything looked great.

But then (CUE THE DRAMATIC MUSIC), when I went back to work on her the next day, I noticed that the stain appeared to have risen up in the area where the ring and splotch mark were. It was thicker and almost sitting on top of the finish. So I started to wipe it off, and of course, the ring and splotch mark were SUPER prominent.

Needless to say, I uttered several swear words that I cannot type here, because this is a PR friendly blog after all.

What I wanted to do was throw this stupid bench right out the window, but instead, I consulted some especially talented blogger friends who helped me decide that a painted grain sack stripe would be the way to go on this one.  (Thank you SO MUCH Bre at Brepurposed, Sarah at Little Red Brick House, Amy at Canary Street Crafts, Michelle at Dandelion Patina, Christina at Operation Home, Kristi at Making it in the mountains, Erica at Dwell Beautiful and Kendra at Joy in Our Home!)  And thankfully, they also cautioned me that the ring and splotch of death might show through my paint cover-up attempt if I didn’t take proper precautions to prevent against it.

So, my good friend Google helped me determine that I needed to spray this problem area with some shellac prior to painting.  (Word to the wise: do not research what shellac is made from.  You will want to die and/or never use the product.)
I was a little nervous because it made the finish super shiny, but I painted over it with some chalk paint and it worked perfectly! NO WATER RING OR SPLOTCH!  Alleluia!
Since this worked out well, I decided to add a little something extra by painting the “No. 9” on the front part of the bench. Why number 9? Because the 1959 song “Love Potion No. 9” was in my head much of the time I was working on this bench! Those heart cutouts on the legs had something to do with that, I think.
In the end, I think the grain sack stripe added some fun detail to a simple piece, so I guess I’m thankful for the splotch mark and ring.  I wouldn’t have painted it this way had it not been for them rearing their ugly heads time and again.
I took my troubles down to Madame Rue
You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth
She’s got a pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine
Sellin’ little bottles of Love Potion Number Nine

– Bre

Last September I purchased a small coffee table for $5.  I had been bitten by the furniture painting bug and was scooping up forlorn pieces, like this one, left and right.

And then I stacked those pieces in my garage.  And they sat there.  Through Chiberia and Polar Vortex 2013/2014, through the mess of my basement remodel (which turned our garage into a storage unit), and through all of the wonderful summer days that are just about over.

My husband threatened to throw them out if I didn’t do something with them.

NOOOOOOOOO!

Needless to say, I got to work and chose to start with my coffee table friend.  I took photos of the makeover along the way, but managed to lose or delete them somehow.  So I have no “work in progress” photos to show you – just before and afters.

But you probably don’t care about those photos anyway, do you?

So let’s cut to the chase and I will show you what this coffee table looks like now.

Friends-

You may or may not remember the awful table “makeover” I showed you a couple of months ago.  The one where I used a Sharpie to draw a crooked and wobbly herringbone pattern on the top of the table.

Embarrassing.

I think I’ve redeemed myself though.  It looks a lot better now, thanks to some paint and my boy, Nate Berkus.  (I can call him “my boy” because we’re tight like that.)

I cannot explain to you how HAPPY I am that the weather is finally improving in Chicago.  Aside from being able to let the kids go outside and run around, I have been able to get some furniture painting done, which has given me so much joy.  Never in a million years would I have pictured myself as a furniture painting junkie, but I think I may be reaching that status.

I can’t get enough!

Last weekend I had some fun giving a makeover to a sad little stool that my sister found for me at a thrift store.  We had gone there to donate some baby clothes, and my husband had given me strict orders not to buy any additional furniture.  But I just couldn’t help myself when it came to this little guy.

Sometimes when painting furniture you make a bad color choice and end up with chairs that look worse than before you painted them.  That happened with these Craigslist chairs, which I painted yellow at first, and then re-did with a beautiful deep teal chalk paint.

These traditional chairs now look fresh and updated with two coats of homemade deep teal chalk paint, sealed in SC Johnson Paste Wax, and antiqued with dark Briwax.  

These chairs started out old and uninspired.  I decided to follow my heart and repaint in a bold color, so I chose Benjamin Moore’s Beau Green for the paint, which is a deep teal color.  

Then, I swapped out the seat fabric for Robert Allen’s Modern Paisley.  The new fabric features teal, beige and brown tones – all of which work well with the paint color and dark wax I applied over the paint.

I think these chairs have been given a whole new life!  They’re no longer sad and plain, but bold and sophisticated.  I love them!
Now I just need to figure out what to do with them . . .

P.S. if you’re interested in refinishing furniture with your own homemade chalk paint, check out my previous post on my Target Table Makeover.