Sorry for being lax in my posts. We went to Vegas last week for another vacay/anniversary celebration.
Ive been in vacation mode for about 3 weeks! But I did get this finished before we left. As usual, I dont have any where to stage this in my house. I am re-doing the living room where this piece will eventually end up. Ive decided on the colors of charcoal, smoke, grays, smokey blues, teals, whites and pops of yellow. This campaign piece was painted in BM "Naples Blue". Kind of a peacocky color. I love it. I think it will make a great accent piece.
Anyway, here is the before and after. To read all about it, scroll down to the post beneath this one.
The actual color is a little more teal/peacock blue in person.
I applied two coats of the satin BM paint. No chalk paint this time. If you havent tried BM Aura, I
highly recommend it. It is by far the best paint I have ever used. I have tried hundreds (Im not lying!) of gallons of Behr paint. My whole house is painted with it. And while it seems fine, after trying the Aura, I have to say that it goes on beautifully! Yes its pricey, but so is ASCP. You get what you pay for.
The hardware was polished with brasso. Do not use Tarn-x on brass!
Partying at all my faves listed at the bottom!
Ok. So now the first campaign debacle. This is the Baker piece. Scored big time on this one. 15 bucks! Had no idea until I did some research. Its a well made piece, obviously, that had belonged to the sellers mother. People, it has been sitting in the garage for months. I just couldnt decide what color to do. I will be keeping this piece because it is such a nice quality.
The wood is bleached walnut. And it needed some TLC. If the wood was great, I would have have kept it natural. So all you wood people, dont hate! I love me some good wood and dont just take a brush to every piece of furniture I see. Some pieces I refuse to paint. So there! pfffffft!
I thought I would try my new milk paint since I sanded this puppy down to bare wood. Or so I thought.
And here is where the debacle begins.
Thought I would try the nice blue. The drawer looks nice eh? So after sanding and a coat of wax, this is what I was left with. Um, no. Not the look I was going for.
Way toooooo chippy. Antique, yes. 60s vintage, no.
Sigh. Break out the sander and start over. Thank god milk paint sands off easily.
The drawer fronts actually have some nice wood grain going on. I decided to keep those and stained them a dark walnut. The wood on the top was just not good quality, trust me. The grain was blotchy and wonky. I tried staining it, but it looked awful. So I will paint everything but the drawers.
They cleaned up nicely!
Now the dilemma. I still cant decide on a color. This will have to be a semi or glossy finish.
I had thought about an oil based white in glossy, but if I dont like it, it will be too difficult to just
"paint over". Black seems, well, too severe. Gray, too blah. Red, getting away from red in the house cuz Im tired of it. Green, nah. See what I mean? I cant decide.
Any input would be welcomed. I plan on redoing my living room by using some gray on the walls
and some sort of blue (anything from aqua to peacock,,,,havent decided on that either!) for the other color.
PART II..........after reading a few comments:
So after reading Rachels comment, I decided to try out MS "Plumage" with a little Lagoon mixed in. Here it is on the edges. ?????
The color above is without the flash. The pic below, the flash washed out.
See what I mean about the wood on the top???? Looks like a map of the world.
After stripping off the other paint and sanding with a 220, I coated the bare wood with this seal coat.
It makes all the difference when its time to paint. The paint goes on so much easier than on bare wood. The finish will look smoother as well. In fact, any time you stain wood, you should use
a seal coat to lock in your stain prior to applying your finishers. This will not affect the top finish.
And Lesley, I agree, yellow would be very pretty as well! Especially with the gray.
There are so many great colors! Im still on the fence.
I think I will go peruse the Ben Moore paint selections tomorrow and see if anything
jumps out at me!
Thanks everyone.....
And here is the finished piece! Read and see more here
I cut enough sycamore to make 15 more stoppers and glued up 8 blanks which will be ready to turn by tomorrow.
