Seaside Inspired Side Table

Just a quick update on what I've been working on before we move on to the main event. Been sanding and brushing away slowly at the wainscot in the family room. Haven't been real rushed to finish it, as my parents wanted to wait until next month (which would be this month) before we bought the paint for it, but I've got all but a small section done, and I plan on getting the paint any day now, so my next post should be on that unless I do something else that I just have to share between now and then which is entirely possible.

Anyways, besides the wainscot, I've been working of various small, random projects such as priming and painting frames/bottles and that sort of thing. Nothing terribly exciting.

Well this week I decided to begin on a project which I had been meaning to tackle for awhile now. I finally got some inspiration for it, so I went to work.


This is an old side table I got from my grandma's house awhile back. I loved the style of the piece and it was in nice condition, but the stain was just plan uninteresting and outdated. I hadn't really felt any inspiration for the piece so it just sort of sat back in the guest bedroom. I saw it sitting back there on Sunday and it suddenly hit me what I should do with it. So I pulled it out on Monday and got to work.

Here is the result. I'm really very pleased with how it turned out. There were a few bumps along the way like it being so humid that the primer wasn't as dry as I thought it should be when I went to paint over it (Ooops!) but over all it wasn't too bad. I will admit I found painting in between all the spindles to be quite a pain though.

Shot of the top...


I was a little nervous about doing the top, because I wasn't 100% sure how to achieve the effect I wanted. I ended up sanding it so that some of it was still stained and some was bare wood (thanks to Shaunna at Perfectly Imperfect for that idea) and then using bleach spray, oven cleaner, and the sun on it. I sprayed bleach on it twice and let it dry in the sun, then let the oven spray drip on there, let it sit for second, then rubbed it all around (That gave me the drip marks you see on the top). After that I wiped it all off with a wet rag, then laid the rag over the top of the wood and let it sit on there for maybe 45 min. After all that I lightly went over it with the sander and then, finally, washed on a light gray paint. It was quite the process, but it worked quite well.



Some details...




...and just random other images, because I took too many...




I'm really anxious to know what you all think!


I thought I'd also give you a little preview of my next project:


I'm pretty sure this is an antique. It belongs to my grandma, and it's going to be a tuffy. The chair is really awesome, but it went through a fire, and is blackened at the top as a result. I've already tried some sanding on it, and I'm not sure it's going to come off and, if it does, it's going to be a LOT of work. If anyone has any suggestions on a good way to get rid of the black, I'd appreciate it. Btw, I'm planning on staining the whole rocker, as I'm not sure my grandma would appreciate me painting over her antique, so ALL the black must be gone.

Thanks so much for reading!