Thursday, November 4, 2010

Ughh. I need help!

Remember the two free chairs I got back in August? Here's what they looked like:


They finally made it to the top of the queue, mostly because I am trying to get my garage cleaned out before the snow flies!

I made my two oldest children help me pull out 4,193 staples Saturday afternoon. That left me with this:


I wasn't feelin' the love for the medium oak stain, so I sanded the arms and legs down, and tried to darken them with Minwax Walnut stain.

I got this:


So
not impressed. The grooves were really hard to sand out, which probably explains why the stain didn't take evenly...or well. It just looked muddy to me.

So I broke out the Heirloom White spray paint, and the burnt umber craft paint for a glaze. It wasn't great, but I was hoping it would look better with actual fabric on it.

After several hours spent re-upholstering today, this is what I have (keep in mind that there is no trim yet):



Guess what? I'm still not impressed.

What do I do now? I really don't see this in black, but maybe I should paint the legs brown? I've never been crazy about brown-painted wood, but it's gotta be better than what I've got now! Any other suggestions? Anyone? Anyone?



HookingupwithHoH

4 comments:

Courtenay@Signal Hill Interiors said...

I love a good challenge like this! I hate it when it's me though who keeps trying to make something work and I'm just not feeling it. So painful! I feel for you. My thought would be to try a medium brown/beige type color and then do the stain over as a glaze to bring out the detail. Nice work keeping your lines straight for the fabric! Can't wait to see how it all turns out.

Rachel said...

Can you do some sort of this kind of a stain?

http://www.plowhearth.com/Deluxe-Mission-Rocker_p11602_S2002_D3003_C1056.html

Keetha Broyles said...

Put some kind of an antiquing finish on the white to tone it down - - - actually, I think the original wood color would be gorgeous with that fabric - - - but that's hind sight, isn't it!

:-)

Brandi Nell said...

I would try and tone down that white with a glaze or a stain over it. If that doesn't work, a caramel brown color paint would be beautiful!

Can't wait to see how they turn out!