HOW TO: Refinishing a dining room table

For Mother's day, I decided I would refinish my mom's boring dining room table! She bought this because it was functional when they moved to Virginia. There stuff was lost by the moving company for over a month.. so she just want stuff they could use, and of course... it never left.

Here is a picture of the chairs... to give you an idea. Nothing special, or notable about the set.

If you have ever considered doing a table, I highly suggest you purchase an electric sander. After watching me try to sand for two hours with no success, my Husband decided this would be a good mothers day gift for me. Thanks babe! 

Luckily, I only needed to sand the top! 

I used Minwax Jacobean stain on the top. 

Always been a favorite of mine. 

I started painting the piece using a Home Depot "Pro" grade brush. And I finally learned something... the brush you use really does matter. And I can't stress enough how much I love my "vintage effects" brush from Woodster. I had to clean my brush and use it wet just to take a picture to prove my point. 

First coat with Home Depot "Pro" brush 

EWW! I would be painting forever. 

Here is my first coat with the Woodster Vintage Effects brush.. which by the way is CHEAPER. 

Thats more like it. Oh! and in case you were wondering, I chose the color "Irish Dew" 

So... after painting... I used a satin poly on the top, and waxed the rest. Waxing chairs sucks. I had hand cramps for a week ): 

But the result was well worth it! 

HOW TO: Annie Sloan dark wax

These two night stands and coffee table (ironically I only have one halfway picture of it... because I was painting a million pieces that weekend and wasn't thinking!) are for my mothers formal sitting room! She wanted them to match a hutch she had in the room already!

So, I did a terrible job with taking before and after pictures for this set! But I must say I am happy with the results! I did a Home Depot color match to get the paint I used to mix the chalk paint, and used Annie Sloan DARK WAX over the top. So if any of you were wondering if ASCP products would work with your DIY chalk paints... the answer is YES!

Here are pictures of the three pieces before I applied the wax! As you can see, they are a very deep buttermilk color.

Per the advice of the girl at the boutique... I added the clear wax and then proceeded to apply the dark wax. Both using a linen cloth.  

I tried to use as little dark wax as possible... which to me takes serious skill! I love the way the dark wax looks on this set... but I can't decide if I would ever use it myself!

HOW TO: achieve the "chippy" look with milk paint

First, let me start out by saying, these piece are still not finished... they are in my master half way done. This is because I wasn't pleased with the color. So I plan to strip them down and start over. BUT I would still like to go over the step by step for anyone who is considering doing a piece in MMS (Miss Mustard Seed milk paint) and would like to achieve the "chippy" look.

First, I started with the undercoat of a darker blue (Flow Blue by MMS) I would hoping to duplicate her technique using Vaseline to have the darker colors show through like natural distressing.

I only painted the pieces of the dresser I planned to apply the vaseline, because I cut corners from time to time and really I didn't have enough paint.

Then, because I like to jump around a bit, I sanded the tops.

Once this coat dried, I applied the light color (French Enamel by MMS) WITHOUT the bonding agent to the pieces of the dresser I wanted to chip. It began to react very quickly, as you can see below.

You can see the color difference below, halfway into my adventure, I realized I didn't have vaseline. A perfect example of why you should check for that kind of thing in advance. I attempted to use Vicks... don't. Didn't work.

After I was completed with that, I added the bonding agent to the paint and proceed to finish the top coat of the night stands. The color appeared thin... so I attempted to paint a second coat with a new batch of paint.

At which point I quickly learned that I did not add enough bonding agent to the second coat, and the dresser began to chip rapidly. I could not apply the wax fast enough! I ended up needing to peel back a good portion of the paint and reapply.

Quite disappointed to spend so much time, only to have them not match! ): The french enamel is much brighter and more "aqua" then I anticipated. I was hoping for a "french blue" that was more ashy.

Stay tuned for the new color I have picked out!!

HOW TO: Using milk paint with a bonding agent

This is one of the only pieces of furniture I bought BEFORE we moved in! And I had been itching to paint it ever since I saw it! I love that the wood didn't need any work! so it would be a perfect piece to try Miss Mustard Seed's Milk paint and try to get the chippy effect.

I decided I wanted a two tone feel, and I picked Grain Sack.

I painted all the pieces I knew I wanted in the grain sack. I will say that I was a little disappointed how "white" it looked... because the grain sack always appears to have more of the grey tint to it.

I added the bonding agent to this piece... because I wanted to have a little control over the chipping of the paint.

I originally wanted to stain the inside of the hutch to match the stain on the "trim"... but after sanding and sanding... the stain wouldn't stick. And I was out of milk paint. SO I used some of the leftover woodsmoke grey chalk paint I used on the buffet to paint the shelves.

To avoid getting any paint on the back of the hutch, I removed it by hammer the inside of the hutch until it was loose and pulling the nails out from behind.

I figure the wood backing is far enough away from the stained trim that it would still fit... but if not then I can always remove it again and add some fun paper or chalk paint it..

You can see the shelves vary slightly in color... and if you look closely, the original backing is lighter then the trim.

I liked that even with the bonding agent, I could "pick" at the paint in places I wanted chipping.

As you can see I really didn't want the chipping to go overboard... but I still wanted the piece to look aged. I am happy with the overall turnout!

HOW TO: using paint stripper

Bought this bad boy when I lived in Phoenix. I put an ISO out for a "federal style" tall boy dresser for my sons room, and a good friend reached out to me and informed me she had one in storage. She had drawn over the top of the paint with chalk, and even with out it... who ever painted it in the first place did a very poor job. The primer they used shows through the black and the black was very uneven.

I started by stripping the original paint, in hopes that the paint I used would chip and display the dresser underneath.

If you haven't used stripper before, its really not that bad. Use a brush to apply the stripper over the paint and let it sit. When you see the paint start to ripple like the picture below, take a scrapper and follow the grain of the wood.

You will probably need to repeat it once or twice. If you don't wait long enough to remove each coat, you will need to do more. Once you have remove enough of the original paint, you can sand anything remaining.

After seeing the original dresser, I almost talked myself out of painting it! But I did anyways...

I decided to use MMSMP for this piece, which was my first time! I picked the color "typewriter" because I was so in love with the desk that Miss Mustard Seed painted with it.

I started by painting the parts of the dresser that I hoped would chip because the paint didn't have a bonding agent. However, because their was no finish left on the wood from the stripper, the paint didn't chip at all!

Over all, I am pleased! The milk paint went on smooth, and has a beautiful even finish. It distressed very easily. After distressing, I waxed, added the knobs and voila!