12:01 PM

Trial and Error: Painting Furniture

I can't believe how quickly this week is flying by. I am in the middle of trying to launch a new product for my floral design business but, I am not quite ready to share it with the world yet. I don't mean to be so mysterious. It's not a big deal. I just want to have all my ducks in a row before I share my idea with the world :).

So...if you don't mind, instead of sharing my new product as I had intended to do this week, I will share some of the other things I have been doing and working on since I last posted.

To begin, last Friday I had this feeling that I wanted to join in with International Women's Day in some way. I decided to share this photo ↓ on Instagram. My thought was that every woman wears all kinds of shoes, metaphorically and literally, in their daily lives. Women by their very nature do allll sorts of things and this was my contribution to the conversation of how versatile, multi-faceted and talented women are.

Since I am a girly-girl, I didn't really have heavy-duty work shoes to include in the photo, even though I know many women can and do fill those kinds of shoes in their daily lives, as well. I hope everyone understood my intent.

The other project that has been going on in my house for a few weeks now has been a painting one. My husband has been doing the painting with me giving him my opinion in-put. Haha! Poor guy!

I believe I shared with you last fall that I had finally purchased a new dining room table after living for many, many years with my old one. The old set is very used and has had several different owners in its life. The new table was one that I had been pining for ever since I spied it in a Restoration Hardware catalog a few years ago. We finally made the purchase last fall. However, because of cost and other factors we haven't taken the next leap to purchase the other pieces that go along with the dining table. Therefore, the used left-over pieces were going to have to do for a little while longer.

Over the years I have tried to make the best of my old set. I knew the style was not in fashion but I still tried to make it work in my photos.

Here you can see the "freckles" of water damage on the sideboard, something that always has bothered me.

You will have to forgive the quality of my photos. They were taken in a rush and not really intended to be shared on my blog. I was simply documenting things for myself. I just recently decided to share the journey here.

As you can see, the other pieces really did not compliment my new table.

We decided to paint the pieces in order for them to meld better with the new table. Well, really "we" decided that my husband would paint the pieces. He is so much better at this stuff than I am.

He placed a big tarp under the work area, emptied the hutch and sideboard of all its stuff and set out to paint. The snowy weekends that were to come helped get the project almost done as you will see at the end.

My daughter, Amanda, had done a painting project of her own and I really liked how it turned out. She had used General Finishes Milk Paint so, I decided to go that route also. We mostly used their chalk paint instead of the milk paint mainly because of the color selection it offered.

Amanda is lucky because she has a very nice specialty paint store, Waters and Brown of Beverly, located one town over from her home that carries General Finishes paint. She is also lucky because her friend, Giselli, works there, as well. Amanda worked with Giselli at Pottery Barn years ago and often asked for her opinion on color and decorating ideas. Now she was giving Amanda all sorts of advice about General Finishes paint and glazes and how to use them. Evidently, Giselli has painted many furniture pieces for clients over the years. So, I decided I would go to Amanda's paint store even though it is an hour away from my house. As it turns out, even though the GF website says there are other locations closer to my house, those locations do not carry all of their products. Besides, Giselli's opinion was well worth the trip.

I brought a wood sample of my table provided by Restoration Hardware to Giselli and she suggested the color Empire Gray in the chalk paint. This color does not come in the milk paint. Hence the chalk paint choice. To be honest, I did not like the color at first. I wouldn't let Tom paint the other pieces until I decided what to do about the color. I was not sure at all if this color was for me. So, the sideboard sat like this while I pondered my options.

I was so undecided that I thought I might paint all the pieces white. That seemed to be the logical way to go but, everyone I showed my furniture pictures to loved the color Giselli had chosen. Even my artist friend, Michelle, loved it. I was starting to change my opinion as the sideboard began to grow on me :).

So, back to Giselli I went. She tactfully discouraged me from painting everything white. Instead, she suggested I soften the look with white glaze. We also decided to paint the inside of the hutch a somewhat lighter shade. We used the Millstone milk paint and lightened it up with the Winter White Glaze. It is hard to tell from this photo but, the inside of the hutch is lighter in a subtle way. We did not put the glaze on the Empire Gray, however. That color really was starting to grow on me :).

The funny thing was~~once the hutch was painted in the Empire Gray also, I started to love the color. I think the continuity of the two pieces being the same color helped me like it. It took a few days but now I can see Giselli's vision. It is very hard to tell from my photos but, the new paint really does compliment the colors in the new dining table.

Tom has been traveling for business a lot lately so he hasn't totally finished the hutch yet. The doors still need to be painted and re-assembled. I am hoping that goes well and no glass gets broken :/. There is also a large buffet that needs to be painted, as well, and we still need to decide if we want to distress the furniture as Giselli had suggested. We'll see. Not sure about that yet.

I hope to share photos in the future that show the whole room put together and decorated. I just have to get my husband home for a few days in a row to finish the job. That would help :) !

I will let you know how it goes~