So I am not sure if I have posted anything about this so here goes. A month or so ago i decided to revamp my dining room. I have the typical Bartlett dining rm lol....A nice shade of RED. And that was all fine and good 5 years ago when I did it ( and when it was in style). These days its all about light shabby chic colors. And to be honest that is way more up my alley now. Well attempt one was a huge Fail!
I painted he chair a general white color ( something villa) and then I was going to rub a brown stain over it to enhance the sanded areas going for the whole distressed look. As you can see it just didnt work out. I bout a water based stain and well I had a major blonde moment and slapped in on a cloth and rubbed it on the furniture (instead of diluting it with water ) So instead of the shabby chic look I got the it looks like my son took a poo on my white chair look.
and since then the chair has just stayed outside and no further work has been done....Until today. Here is the current status of the icky chair
it is a VERY (too too too) Tiffany Blue. A total extremem of what I was going for although it is a vast improvement from its previous state. So after goodling for a bit I found this
tutorial and I plan to get started right away. We actually went to a friends new home last night and they got some furniture from I O metro. It was totally along the lines of what I was originally going for so it resparked my excitement for the project! I hope it turns out then it will be on to painting the red walls and hanging some fun drapes and i have the perfect ones from pottery barn on my want list.
Well thats it for now gotta let the paint dry. I am only going one chair first incase i screw it up again lol.
*UPDATE*
here is the completed chair
( the color is way more vivd outside than when you bring it indoors.)
I am super excited about this transformation and it was super easy to do! I am not good at tutorials and I didnt take any pics with my good camera bc my hands were quite dirty so bare with me if your interested I will do my best to explain. I changed up a few things in the tutorial but overall got the effect I was looking for.
The tiffany blue color I used was actually spray paint ( in aqua) vs. painting all theses chairs with a brush or roller. This table was given to us for free when we moved in our home and I had in my head that if the project went south I would just buy a table and chairs thus leading me towards the spray paint. With a 2 yr old it is impossible to find time to do anything much less hand paint stuff. The spray paint worked very well overall. There is one chair that doesnt look as "smooth" as the others. I have not completed that chair yet so I just plan to sand it more than the others when I reach that step. Oh and fyi one can of spray paint covered one whole chair and the legs of another so it went a pretty long way.
Now onto the "washing" colors. the tutorial says to use 3 colors where I had only planned on using two. So I had to rack my brain as to what color I wanted to add in the mix. I decided on Martha Stewarts A Winter Day. This is the bluish-gray color I painted my bedroom for those who remember. I wasnt sure how it would look on top of the aqua but I was looking to tone down the brightness and thought for sure between this color and white I could make it happen. I am not a math person so when it said to come up with a 70-30 ration of paint to water i just made sure i had more water than paint. I thought it was too thick but when i went to roll it on it just didnt do the trick for me! It was very water and did not cover like another layer of paint ( see pics in the tutorial) I got a little worried. I dont know if it didnt cover as well bc i used spray paint vs flat paint or if my mixture was off. I decided to make the best of it and I grabbed a sponge from the kitchen (unused of course) and sponged the mixture over the chair.
With the watered down paint being gray i thought it would be gray over the aqua...wrong! It actually was this color i cant really describe it was kinda peachy and really pretty! I rubbed it in with the sponge repeatedly just bc it was so watery ( again remember my goal was lighting that electric blue as much as possible). And since i thought it was too watery i did a couple coats.
After this dried it was time to do the same with the white paint. I just used a sample can i dot a while back something villa. nothing special just a plain white ( a lot of people use antique white i may do this next time). I tried to make this mixture a little richer ( less water ) I really wanted this step to be a tone down process for the chair. Again I used the sponge bc the roller wasnt going to "coat" the chair ( i intend on doing this on another project that I will take more time with so i will post wether the spray paint or the mixture made the difference). I was able to achieve what i was going for with the white wash. The chairs were definitely more muted.
After they dried it was time to sand. I am always so nervous with this step bc I am so scared I will screw what ive already done up. But with this project I found the more you sand the better things look. I didnt have an orbital sander like the tutorial used but in all honesty even if i did I dont think I would have used it bc i was too afraid I would make "swirls". I used a mouse sander instead ( its what my neighbor had and let me borrow). It looks like an iron which helped me get in the nooks of the chair. I started with 100 grain even though it says use 250-350. All i had was the 100 grain and I was too impatient. Again I like the look. I am toying with the idea of getting the 250 today since I have to get more to complete the chairs anyways but again that little nervous voice in my head may make me think otherwise.
So there you have it, in the end I am super happy with what I have done. One difference I noticed is that with chair number one it had a coat of white paint and stain on it so when i sanded it the brown of the wood didnt show through as the other chair that i just painted aqua from its original form ( no white base). I like it better without the white base coat bc you can see the black come through so I am glad i got lazy with the primer. The one chair isnt too different that it will look funny i just like the other better. My dilemma now is the table. I had originally planned on doing the whole thing the aqua color but even muted it is very loud!. And this may be bc my walls are still red and not a neutral color. Does anyone have any suggestions? The legs of the table are black and the top is just plain wood. I am thinking of doing legs aqua and maybe the top a light tan-ish color with the gray and white wash over it with a less water mixture? Does that sound silly- Opinions please :) I have come so far I dont want to screw up now!
