. . . painted more furniture

Above is the small chest that I mostly finished yesterday. It's kind of "beach cottage", maybe a nautical theme, as it turns out. . . and I even reattached the hinges. . .



Here are the wooden balls that I will paint with blue dots and attach to the doors of the blue beach cottage chest.





And here is the plant stand that is almost finished, too. After I put the deglosser on this piece and took off all the dirt, it almost looked too good to paint. Coincidentally, while I hand-painted this thing white in the front of the house, in the garage, the guys in the back of the house were spray painting white on the house. I probably could have asked them to blast this thing with their power-sprayer, and they could have had it done in about thirty seconds. But that would have been cheating. . . wouldn't it?



I sanded off the edges and today will apply a wash to age it just a bit more. Then it's done.


My friend dropped by two more pieces yesterday, as well as a couple of magazine/catalogs for inspiration. The new pieces are massive and will take a while to complete. One is an unbelievably beautiful sideboard with carved details on the drawers and doors; the other is an old oak dresser. But my next project is the round table with the beautiful pedestal base and cool feet. I think "the boss" wants that a glossy black. So I better figure out how to do that.

One of the catalogs he brought was from Pottery Barn. There are pieces in that catalog that have a "sandrift gray finish" -- looks kind of gray-green. The description indicates that such a finish is achieved by layering "eggplant, taupe and blue washes, then sanding and glazing for depth and luster." Who would have thought that particular combination of washes would end up gray-green? Not me. I will have to try it out just for shits and giggles. Another finish is "antique honey." It kind of looks like a golden (but not metallic) opaque layer antiqued with dark stain. Espresso, black, ivory, antiqued red. . . all good painted furniture colors if you're a Pottery Barn fan. And probably a lot easier to accomplish than all the fussy little details. Stay tuned.