Yellow, gold and pink. I’m not sure the “before” pics provide the full experience of 60 year-old, dingy, gunk-in-the crevices state of this furniture. The streaky yellowed color resembled the tar on the walls of a smoking room. While the rose marble was really beautiful (and flawless), sitting atop the yellow and gold bases made it appear rather tacky and crass at first sight.
We received a house-full of french provincial furniture from the original owners who purchased it new as newlyweds. This has provided an almost endless supply of projects – many of which will be documented here in future posts.
I was very nervous about having slabs of marble
lying around the garage – it’s too expensive and too permanently breakable for me. So, the marble topped tables were 
clearly the first candidates for repair and restoration.
The repairs were pretty straightforward and included filling a few gouges, gluing a loose joint here and there and adding some structural support screws.
After scrubbing with TSP substitute (twice), it seemed the toughest part was finding the right shade of creamy white to show off the rose marble while subtly highlighting the french details of the pieces. After many tries, I settled on the perfect hue. As you can see here, flipping a detailed piece upside down to access all of the crevices is the most effective way to ensure a thorough paint job; (and I can throw in a load of laundry while coats are drying!). A thorough sanding of all surfaces, including the patches, a few coats of paint with light sanding in between, and a final coat of polycrylic for durability (and easy future cleaning!) and this set was ready for it’s new home.
I love how the carved wood details subtly show off the distinctive lines of the pieces without having to use the previously overdone gold highlights. 
What color would you have chosen? Would you have used an accent color to highlight the trim details?