My husband is partly to blame for my love of all things old. He taught me to see the beauty in the history and ruggedness of an object. And I love him all the more for it. We just recently built a house; though it is a brand new house, we wanted to make it seem like an old farm house. We had been on the hunt for a gorgeous antique table for several months. We did not want one that was painted to look like an antique; we wanted the real deal.
A good friend and I had a booth at a craft fair in this little historical town called Bell Buckle. This craft fair is a big deal; it takes up the whole town and people travel all over the country to attend. It was in this tiny unheard of town that we found the table we had been seeking. It was gorgeous and perfectly worn, and it called to me from under a pile of other antiques.
Now I had my table, but I needed chairs. Of course, just any set of chairs would not suffice. I did not want upholstered chairs, dark wood stained chairs, or boring cheap chairs as they would not complement the table. I searched for another three months online and at various thrift shops only to find that everything with the personality I wanted was $200 apiece. No thanks! This is where the fun comes in.
On one fated day, I popped into my favorite local antique shop, Yesterday's Treasures in my hometown of Dickson, to see if they had anything new. Behold, my chairs! Again, they called to me from under a pile of other stuff. After tax, my grand total was $38. The only problem...I found the color dark and unhappy. And it simply would not go with the rest of my house. So I refinished them.
The accent color for the living area of our home is turquoise. I bought a gallon of eggshell-finish turquoise paint at Lowe's (because I did not want super-glossy chairs next to my old table). I sanded the chairs to roughen them up so the new paint would stick. I laid an old cheap curtain on the floor (because it was too cold to paint outside) and placed the chairs far enough apart so that I would not bump a finished one while working on the second one. The painting only took about two hours, and that included a reading break between the two chairs. The paint went on smoothly, and I only needed one coat. If you decide to paint furniture, the best advice I can give you is to be wary of drips. While I was painting, I had to constantly glance over the entire chair to be sure the paint was not dripping anywhere. Because of the serious paint drips from all the details on the legs, the best method I found is to dry brush two coats of paint. This is much less stressful and also quicker because you aren't constantly having to stop what you are doing to catch and remove a drip.
Once the painting was finished, my husband and I left to go get some dinner. When we came back three hours later, the chairs were completely dried. At this point, if the original paint color hadn't been so yucky, I would have sanded the chairs again at all the edges to give them a worn antique look. I could also have painted a coat under the turquoise, perhaps a cream color. But since my table is so thoroughly worn, I did not intend to put fake-worn next to the real thing. I also like the juxtaposition of old and new, especially with the bright pop of color.
I will add to this post in a few months. My husband works in construction and is very crafty with wood-building. He is going to build two benches to go on the long sides of the table, and the two chairs will go on either end. My hope is that the legs of the benches can be similar to the backs of the chairs so it looks like a set. This painting project will begin from fresh wood, so it will present its own challenges (and hence why I bought a whole gallon of paint).
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