White chair with hand painted detail

While working to make the chair in the photo below a little cuter, I hit a snag. Let me show you what went wrong, and what I did to fix it.

Here it is painted in "Heirloom White" with a little distressing and some hand painted detail on the back.




The bird turned out fine. I did not free-hand this, by the way. It's traced. In fact, one of these days I hope to be able to show you with step-by-step photos how you can do this yourself. But that will be another time.

The leafy twigs... well... there's the snag. In my attempt to make things easier on myself and save a little time, I used a Sharpie marker to draw on the fine lined twig instead of painting it.

I knew I couldn't do a clean job with paint, so I improvised. Bad idea. When I put a clear coat over it to protect the paint, something in the sealer made the Sharpie bleed. Aren't those things supposed to be permanent?

My solution: very fine sand paper. You can barely even tell it got sanded in this photo.

But here you can see the difference in finish. The sealer just kind of absorbed the marker, so all I had to do was sand that layer off and it took the Sharpie with it.

This time, I did it right. Black acrylic paint, fine-tipped paint brush and a damp napkin just in case of mistakes.

See? Not very good with the paint. But that's okay. This is supposed to look hand painted, worn and imperfect, so I left it alone.



Another coat of sealer and it's all done!
The end.

Vintage high chair = Favorite yard sale find!

After writing a blog post for 5 days in a row last week, I think I'm actually beginning to run out of material. But not just yet! I have to share with you my lovely little vintage high chair now that it's had a good cleaning and a little TLC.

When I bought it at "The Yard Sale" it was quite dirty and had some of the old finish that was basically flaking off. But I loved the time worn look that it had and meant to keep it. Since I was planning on putting this chair back to work, I knew it would need to be protected somehow so that spills wouldn't just absorb into the wood. However, I didn't want it to become shiny, which a polyurethane would do. So for a solution I turned to a blogger who is much more knowledgeable about such things than I am.

After reading over a very helpful post chock full of information written by Kristine at The Painted Hive, I decided that Danish Oil might be the product I ought to use on this beauty. Just to be sure, I e-mailed her a photo of the chair and asked her what she thought I should do. In just a couple of hours she'd replied and given me oodles of info!

Here's what she had to say:

Using a liquid sealer over any raw wood will inevitably cause some change in the timbers appearance. Try brushing on a little water to see if you like the look of the timber when it's damp. A sealer will most likely cause the same type of effect (perhaps a little lighter) though of course water will promptly dry whereas a sealer will penetrate the timber, locking in moisture and providing a (usually shiny) barrier, thus repelling stains and maintaining a richer look.

I would say you're right in that danish oil (sometimes called Scandinavian oil) is your best bet for a liquid sealer as it has a much more natural, subtle finish than poly. Another option would be to try beeswax. Beeswax is less penetrating than a liquid sealer so will maintain the silvers in your timber better though, while it does seal well when done properly, the seal is not as effective as a liquid based sealer.

She answered my question so thoroughly that I was left with no doubt that Danish oil was the way to go. While I really liked the "silver" look of the wood, I didn't want to take any chances using something that might not seal it from food stains. I'm so, so happy with the results!


It's not a dramatic change, but that's what I was hoping for! You can see that the wood was given an overall richer look and darkened quite a bit, but I don't mind that at all.

There's still quite a variation in the tones of wood throughout the chair which gives it tons of character. I also love that the Danish oil didn't add any sort of sheen to the wood. In some places it looks almost raw, but I know that it's protected.

Since the tray had split in a couple of places and had been "repaired" with some sort of glue before I bought it, the Danish oil caused the glue to become tacky and it stayed tacky. My solution was to lightly sand over the whole tray with fine sand paper, then just wiped one some satin polyurethane. This got rid of the tackiness and made me feel like the tray (which will obviously be the most used part of the chair) got a little extra protection. (Isn't that little leather strap adorable? It's attached to the underside of the tray and snaps to the bottom of the chair. Cute!)

Finnley hasn't had a chance to really use it yet, but doesn't he look excited?!







One more comparison for ya.


SUPER HUGE THANK YOU to Kristine for taking the time to answer my question, and for imparting so much wonderful information to a novice like me! I really love this chair and feel confident now in letting my little one actually use it.

Before and After: octagonal table and entry mirror

More "before and afters" today!

This sweet little table finally got its makeover. Here's how it started out.

You may recall the post I wrote discussing the possibility of painting the bottom yellow and leaving the top unpainted. Well, I tried it, but the "buttery yellow" turned out more like Big Bird yellow. Seriously, this photo isn't showing how bright it really was.

During the few seconds it took me to walk to the garage and back, my little guy had pulled two chairs up to this table and was contentedly "reading". What a good idea! It's the perfect size for kids!

Anyway, I decided to try and tone down that yellow with a little white glaze. I think it did the trick.



The top got a couple of coats of Danish Oil to protect the wood but giving it no sheen.

And since that partially-painted base was bugging me, I ended up removing the top and painting the rest of the base yellow as well. (Did you notice that in the photos above? Yeah, that looked weird.)

The top turned very orange when I put the Danish oil on it. You can see the difference in the photo with my son reading.

But I like the rustic quality that it still has. All of the grooves and dents and discolorations that it's earned are still visible, and that's what I wanted.

Next is the mirror that's been hanging in our entry. I wish I'd taken a photo of it hanging up. The entry is really small and tends to get kind of dark, so I thought hanging a mirror in there would help. It does, but since the frame of the mirror is so dark and it hangs above a dark cabinet, the feeling was still kind of, well, dark.



All I did was tape off the mirror to save myself the trouble of having to scrape paint off of it...

...then hit it with a coat of the same white glaze that I'd used on the table above. Using a clean cloth I just wiped away some of the wet glaze to show the surface and give it some depth.

I'm still trying to decide if I like it, or if it needs something else done to it. (Are you noticing a trend of uncertainty with some of my projects lately?)

But it definitely lightens up the space, which is what I wanted.
More "before and afters" to share later!

Before and Afters: side table and step stool

I have a long list of goals for this week and am making pretty good progress so far. After coming home with a truckload of furniture from the huge yard sale last weekend, I kind of need to get some projects completed to keep my garage from being overrun by tables and chairs. Over the next couple of days I hope to be able to share some "before and after" photos with you as I get things finished. Here are a couple to get us started.

I posted a photo of this little table a few weeks ago when I brought it home from a yard sale. Pretty cute, but kinda dated. I loved those chunky legs and the extra large screw buttons were just adorable.

What I really wanted to do was strip the finish off the top, stain it, and paint the legs. But once I got the top completely stripped...

... I realized that the whole table top was not all wood.
I tried staining the whole thing anyway, but as expected, the fake stuff didn't accept the stain the same as the real wood, so it looked weird. Then during a conversation with a friend about my dilemma, she suggested that I paint the fake part black and leave the real wood stained. Brilliant! So I tried it. Here's how it turned out.

What do you think? Is it too much? My husband said he thinks there's too much going on here.

But I just couldn't bear to paint over those adorable over sized circles on the top, and the multi-directional wood grain is pretty, too.

The legs got a couple of coats of my trusty "Heirloom White" then antiqued with black glaze, the faux drawer got a new pull (Hobby Lobby), and the edge of the top was painted in just regular black semi-gloss house paint.



Honestly, I'm not completely convinced that I like the top, but I guess I'll leave it as is and see if it sells.

The next item I want to show you was just a plain old wooden step stool that I picked up at a thrift store for about 4 bucks. It was dusty, but other than that there was nothing at all wrong with it.

Even with just a coat of primer it already looks better!

This little guy might just be staying at my house. My kids are always dragging chairs around the kitchen to stand on, so this could be really handy. And there's that robin's egg blue that I adore!

I distressed it quite a bit and let some of the white primer show through, then rubbed the edges with walnut stain to darken the exposed wood and give it a little more age.

Well, that's it for today. There's definitely more coming, though, so check back soon!

A coffee table- reborn!

My living room is getting closer to being complete! Over the weekend I finally made up my mind about the coffee table and put the finishing touches on it.

Here are some "before" and "after" pictures for you.





The top was thoroughly sanded and cleaned, then stained with "Special Walnut" by Minwax. I applied 3 coats of wipe-on poly in a satin finish to seal it. The legs got a couple coats of Rust-oleum's "Heirloom White", then a light distressing with my sander.

I really love how this table turned out. I think it's just perfect for my room.

Leaving part of a piece beautifully stained and painting the rest has opened up my eyes to new possibilities for furniture refinishing. I guarantee you I'll be doing this a LOT on future makeovers.

If you have a piece that you want to re-do but are a little hesitant to paint over your wood, consider this as an option. It might make painting less scary if you leave some of the wood alone, and I think it's a good compromise if you have a purist for a spouse who thinks all wood should be left unpainted, but you're convinced that sometimes it's okay to cover it up. With this treatment you can both be satisfied, and end up with a lovely "new" piece of furniture!

P.S. I'll be adding this to the Frugal Friday Linky Party going on at The Shabby Nest (my first time!) so hop over and see the other entries as well!