My husband and I just moved into a new house. In the last house we had lots of traditional antiques, but I wanted to change things up at the new place. After getting into some debates about the new decor (surprisingly my husband was VERY opposed to mid-century modern) we decided to go with a more eclectic mix of furniture. This is great though because it opens the door for me to do a LOT of projects :)
One of the first... we needed more seating in the living room and I have been wanting to make over a fainting couch for a while, and lucky me, craigslist happened to be nice enough to have EXACTLY what I was dreaming of!
Or at least something I could turn INTO exactly what I was dreaming of. Enter this little beauty pictured. Or as I like to refer to her, "Sparkles and Spirals" for the beyond horrible sparkly floral fabric.
One of the first... we needed more seating in the living room and I have been wanting to make over a fainting couch for a while, and lucky me, craigslist happened to be nice enough to have EXACTLY what I was dreaming of!
Or at least something I could turn INTO exactly what I was dreaming of. Enter this little beauty pictured. Or as I like to refer to her, "Sparkles and Spirals" for the beyond horrible sparkly floral fabric.
SO! First things first. I enlisted my husband to strip all the fabric and guts off so we had just the wooden frame (whew, was it stinky!) I wish I had gotten a picture with all of the broken webbing etc.
Next, I knew I wanted more of that "Restoration Hardware" antique grey finish instead of the mahogany that it currently was. So I very carefully sanded the entire piece with fine grit until the finish was gone using progressively finer grit sand paper.
Next I got some of the Minwax pickling stain from my local home depot (AKA, the place my entire paycheck goes) as well as a small sample of an antique black in matte, along with rags and Minwax pre-stain treatment. I went over the whole piece with the pre-stain and let that sit.
In the meantime, it took some trial and error getting the right ratio of pickle to black paint to extra water to get the grain to show through and get that natural distressed look I was going for, but once I got it right, I used the rag to quickly work the pickle into the wood and then, with a clean rag, immediately wiping it back off. Then I went over it with ultra-fine steel wool to distress, then the pickle process again.
Once that was all done I went over the piece in a brown tinted glaze to bring some warmth back. Once it looked how I wanted I sprayed the whole thing down with Minwax matte polyurethane spray paint to maintain that natural look while providing protection.
Next I got some of the Minwax pickling stain from my local home depot (AKA, the place my entire paycheck goes) as well as a small sample of an antique black in matte, along with rags and Minwax pre-stain treatment. I went over the whole piece with the pre-stain and let that sit.
In the meantime, it took some trial and error getting the right ratio of pickle to black paint to extra water to get the grain to show through and get that natural distressed look I was going for, but once I got it right, I used the rag to quickly work the pickle into the wood and then, with a clean rag, immediately wiping it back off. Then I went over it with ultra-fine steel wool to distress, then the pickle process again.
Once that was all done I went over the piece in a brown tinted glaze to bring some warmth back. Once it looked how I wanted I sprayed the whole thing down with Minwax matte polyurethane spray paint to maintain that natural look while providing protection.
To Be Continued...
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