From Drab to Fab!

Friday, September 16, 2011

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you all made it through the week relatively unscathed. :)

One of the projects I worked on last weekend was updating a Jacobean style side board that The Man picked up at a local auction this past summer. I think I was away on a work trip because he usually buys big pieces when I'm not around! He wasn't sure if I liked it but he decided to take a chance because "it has nice legs". Hahaha!

I wish I had a before picture for you, but as usual, it was covered in paint before I remembered to take one. If you can imagine a dry and brittle piece with veneer chipped off everywhere and the top veneer missing off of it, then you've got a pretty good idea of what it looked like.

Having only ever done two other distressed pieces before this one, I was a little nervous as to how this one would turn out. But I knew those legs would look sensational after a bit of distressing and a coat of wax! I painted three coats of Benjamin Moore's Vapor on it before sanding it down and distressing the edges.

Then I applied a coat of dark walnut wax paste all over the base, waited a few minutes then rubbed it down with a dry cloth. The wax does a really good job of darkening the exposed wood areas as well as protecting the painted finish. I hit some of the detailed areas twice since I wanted those areas to look a little darker.

Considering how rough this top was before we started, I'm so surprised how awesome it turned out! This piece was missing it's finish piece of veneer, so what I had to work with was a top that had a wide black streak up the middle of it. Not very pretty! So I thought that staining the top with an ebony wood stain would blend the two different areas together - wrong! It didn't do much at all. So then I found some left over black satin oil based paint from Old Village sitting in my cabinets. I haven't used it since I bought it 6 years ago, and I should have shook the can a lot more than I did because it went on like tar! Three days later is still wasn't dry. Yes three whole days later! Note to self: Self, never use old paint!

I had lost my patience with the top, so I pulled out my palm sander and went to town on that thick, black goop...I mean, paint. It clogged up every piece of 40 grit sandpaper I had, but it was coming off! After getting most of it off, I sanded the rest by hand then applied a couple of coats of the dark walnut wax paste to bring out the wood grain. It's not perfect by any means, but it will do until I find a replacement. :)

Considering what it used to look like, I think it turned out beautifully! Do you want to know what The Man paid for the piece? $20? $40? It was a steal for $12! Add the sample pot of paint and all up, we only paid $19 for it! Love a good bargain! :)

One of my favorite finds of this summer was the blog of Miss Mustard Seed. She's a fabulous fountain of knowledge and creativeness and she inspired me to tackle this project. So I'm linking my first ever furniture post to this week's Furniture Feature Friday!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!