Tag: new store

Battered Buffet

Posted in before and after, Fusion, paint brushes, StaalmeesterTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Oh how I have been in search of a buffet to paint!!

I finally found this set in an online auction and was pretty excited about the possibilities. The tricky thing about an online auction is you rarely have the opportunity to see the pieces live and “kick the tires”…it’s all reliant on photos.

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In this case the photos didn’t really show the whole picture, and it’s even difficult to see in the photos I have posted here.  The wood veneer on the china cabinet is, in fact, more gorgeous than these photos reveal.  And I mean in a “holy cow no one should ever put paint on that beautiful wood” kind of way.

 

 

The buffet had, however been quite battered, including chipped veneer, poorly applied ancient shellac, and structural cracks.  Perfect for Paint!!!

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Luckily I was able to find a home for the china cabinet with someone who was as in love with the wood as I was and planned on sprucing up only the interior with some color. Whew!

First step after washing and scuff sanding was to remove the doors, drawers and hardware.  After that it was on with stripping the old finish off the scratched and stained top to see what condition the wood was underneath.

A few coats of Citristrip later and it looked pretty good with the exception of some character-building dings and a single light burn mark from a hot dish.  That helped to make the decision for a dark stain on top to blend in the burn.  Here’s how it looked after two applications of Minwax Jacobean stain and a several thin layers of Polycrylic Matte for a topcoat.

 

 

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For the body, I started with a good cleaning with TSP, light sanding and scrub with some odorless mineral spirits to remove any residual wax.  A few repairs here and there (and everywhere…) – including repairing the top finish after some precariously stacked boards in the overstuffed garage were accidentally knocked onto the curing finish…yes, a variety of words were said.

A base coat of FUSION Concealer helped to solidify coverage for the first coat of FUSION Raw Silk.  It only took two coats of Raw Silk to get great coverage overall.  I used a microfiber roller on the flat spots and my go-to angled 2 inch flat brush for the rest.  I was EXHAUSTED after working the flat brush into all of those curves on the legs…and I still missed a bunch of spots.  This strategy was Not going to work.

Enter Staalmeester!

I had a set of Staalmeester brushes I have been wanting to try out, but frankly didn’t anticipate being wowed by any cutting edge paintbrush advances…I mean, it’s just a paintbrush, right?

Folks have been buzzing about how great the pointed sash brush is for getting into nooks and crannies, so I decided to give it a try since it couldn’t get worse than what I did with the flat brush!

H-O-L-Y    C-O-W   was I totally Wowed!!!!

The #18 pointed sash brush at the very bottom if the picture became my new favorite tool.  It slid effortlessly into all of those nooks, held tons of paint, and laid down a smooth, even layer of paint in half the time it took me to attempt the base coat.

I will Never paint curves again without it!!!

After that valuable lesson, I have lightly distressed and partially antiqued this piece.  I also reassembled the buffet and painted a few coats of concealer inside the cabinets and Chocolate inside the badly beaten drawers.  Here’s a peek at the progress so far…

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 There is much more finishing work to be done  – MORE TO COME!!!

 

 

 

This Table Has Legs (6 of them) & She Knows How to Use Them

Posted in before and after, French Provincial, Furniture, FusionTagged , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

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After working on several of these provincial pieces, I find I really love the lines of these legs.  I lament the size and shape of our dining area as it just won’t accommodate this set. Here is a photo of how battered and beaten these legs were and how nicely they cleaned up after a bit of scrubbing, filling, sanding and painting (& sanding & painting: repeat…).  This table has 6 gorgeous legs .IMG_2933

In addition to her battle scars, the overall color of this set was also frightening.  The yellowed, worn, faux finish with chipped gold trim was not exactly appetizing.IMG_2983I was initially planning on lightly sanding and re-painting the whole thing.  I’m not sure what made me curious to experiment on the table leaf…perhaps it was the factory marking on the bottom of it indicating “Cherry” in barely legible scrawl.  Dining Table & Chairs:

Could this tabletop possibly be cherry wood hidden under a thick, impenetrable layer of paint and wax and what can only be described as funk?  Only one way to find out…Citristrip on the leaf.

And This is what I discovered!

Not exactly blemish-free, but too beautiful to be covered in a faux-wood paint finish.

So, this is what I did.

Yes, that’s my living room with multiple furniture refinishing projects in various stages of incompleteness in the middle of it.  Before judging me, please understand…It’s Winter in Western NY.  The unheated 1-car garage is filled with pending project furniture and averages about 15 degrees.  The yard alternates between deep snow and semi-frozen mud this time of year, so there was no place to sand the table top.  Thank goodness Citristrip can be used indoors because the goopy, gloppy mess ended up getting stripped in my living room.  Who can wait for Spring when you know there’s  painted cherry wood yearning to be free?

So if you look carefully in this photo of my progress preconditioning the wood in preparation for staining, you will see that I am totally busted. Citristrip and mineral spirits only got me so far and I needed to sand the table top to address a few particularly difficult areas.  Yes, I power-sanded in my living room.  In my defense, it was midnight and it didn’t seem to make that much of a mess.  Until the morning sun shone brightly through those big windows, illuminating the thick layer of dust everywhere.  I quickly regretted my nocturnal activity.  And I cleaned.  A lot.  Please folks, Don’t do this at home in the house.  

But it does look pretty good, doesn’t it?

The next morning, in addition to realizing how silly it is to sand in the living room, I also noted that after conditioning, the wood was less than perfect.  Nothing that a few layers of stain couldn’t manage, but it was clear I would have to go with a darker shade than I originally planned.  This became especially relevant when the edges took the stain much differently than the top.  It took some creativity, but I was able to make it work.

With the time needed to dry between layers of stain and polycrylic on the top, I was able to patch, sand and paint the base and 6 chairs.  A few of the chairs needed gluing and general tightening up, but this is a great set of quality furniture and it is SOLID.  The seat covering is pretty new, in great shape and professionally done, so I decided to leave it in place.  Better for the next owner to select something specifically suited to their taste than to mine. (Although I do have a bolt of gorgeous blue-patterned upholstery I purchased just for these seats – before I realized they wouldn’t fit in my space…). Oh well…

Since I was obviously working indoors, I chose a paint with no fumes or VOCs.  Fusion Mineral Paint is the most eco-friendly paint I have found.  It is pure acrylic, sticks to just about anything, and doesn’t require a topcoat for tough-as-nails durability. By the way – I despise waxing furniture, so not requiring a topcoat is a Huge plus for me.  The color I chose for this set is Champlain, an off-white neutral in a creamy tone.  I sanded between coats for extra smoothness and ended up using a quick swipe of wipe-on poly just to make sure it would be easy to clean in the future – it is a dining table after all – and I know what my tables endure so I expect no less from anyone else.

Just look at all of those great legs!!!!!

I wish I had a better space to properly stage this in, but it really is a gorgeous set that I think speaks for itself despite the lack of staging.  What colors would you have chosen?  How would you stage this set?