I became friends with the owner through some mutually beneficial transactions. She bought this cute headboard from me:
as well as this cedar chest:
and I purchased this bench from her (it was originally yellow; I repainted it).
Recently she let me into her "workroom" where she literally has stacks of furniture waiting to be redone/refurbished/updated/glorified (whatever)! She has her work cut out for MONTHS, if not years! She commissioned me to finish a dining set for her so she could sell it in her shop.There are six chairs; one is an arm chair:
And look at these gorgeous table legs!
My first step was to sand down the table top...
...and that's where the trouble started. The veneer was loose and dry in several places along the edge, and the sander ripped some pieces right off. Argghh! The plan had been to stain the top, but missing veneer poses a problem.I wondered, though, how bad could it be? So I filled in the missing places with wood filler, and stained it anyway. Yeah, not so good. Although wood filler is "stainable," in a large area you really miss seeing that pretty wood grain!
Strike 1.
Then I thought about "faux painting" the wood-filled area to simulate wood grain. I broke out my paintbrushes and acrylic paints, and gave it a go. Hmmm...it didn't seem too bad... Stain it again. Color's good, but the texture--still bad.
Strike 2.
Forget about stain. Let's just paint the whole top, and then see what glaze can do. Hmm. Not bad, but kind of bleahh.
Strike 3.
This is getting ridiculous! And yes, in baseball I would be "out." Thankfully it doesn't work that way with furniture. ;-)
In sheer desperation, I pulled out my leftover can of MinWax Polyshades in Antique Walnut. I had tried it on another project, and I was less than impressed. This time, I was hoping the maybe the color in the polyurethane would give an extra depth of color to the plain brown painted top.
Whaddya know...it worked!
{huge sigh of relief}
Magically, blessedly, it worked. The color was lovely; it glowed. I had to take back all the nasty things I said about Polyshades in the past.
As you can see, the apron of the table and the chairs were painted in Rustoleum's Heirloom White. I glazed everything with burnt umber craft paint afterward. Here are the pretty leg supports. They were a late arrival; they had been misplaced and weren't with the rest of the set!
Look at the beautifully detailed table legs!
Here's the pretty arm chair:
The owner was going to cover the seats herself. See the pretty fabric on the top of the table? It's brown with a turquoise and ivory pattern. However, as people have come to look at the set in the shop, not everyone has been impressed with her choice! So for now, she's going to leave the seats uncovered and offer the buyer their choice of fabric for the seats.
Here's a last pretty picture!
And coming soon...wait until you see what I got in exchange! (Hint: it wasn't money!)
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