On Sunday, I received the following email from a super sweet blogger regarding the chair that I am currently making over:
Hey LeAnne, I found your blog a couple of weeks ago and
love it. I don’t remember I how I found it but I’m glad I did. I
was catching up with MMS this morning and there it is “THE CHAIR” “THE
FINISH” “OMG”.
...
I have a French dining room table and chairs that I
have been preparing to paint. I thought I had a plan!
Then ‘THE POST” “THE CHAIR” “THE
FINISH” “I no longer have a plan. So here it is, would you be
willing to share with me your colors, and steps that you did to get this look. It
would be perfect for my dining room, I would be eternally grateful, I would
give you my first born, wait no, ok maybe lend you my husband he’s great
at building homes! That all I got!
...
Well that was the most pathetic thing I have ever
written, I can’t believe I’m going to send this, I know you’ll
understand! Wont you??
This made my day. I was super flattered and honestly felt a bit undeserving. First of all, most of what I am doing to the chair comes straight from the queen herself, Miss Mustard Seed. I cannot take credit for coming up with this on my own. I did do a few things differently, which I will get to in just a sec, but the general idea of the piece is inspired by her. It is, after all, a "Copy Me Challenge." She's giving us free reign to copy her? Awesome! ;) But secondly, I'm still a novice at this junking thing. I'm no expert by any means. I just spend my time testing out new techniques, seeing if they work, and if they do, AWESOME! If they don't, I call it a fail, and try again.
So I do feel a little out of place offering a tutorial because this girl probably knows a heck of a lot more than I do when it comes to painting. But I made a promise and I'm keeping it! :)
She did bring up a valid point about "never giving away your secrets." I understand that some people out there may feel this way and I completely respect that. To each his own. But here's my personal thinking on it: I have learned a tremendous amount of information from your blogs. I receive inspiration from so many of you and I am ever grateful for your willingness to share. A good bit of what I do comes from somewhere in the back of my mind or from a vision or from a gut-feeling. But there are projects that stem from something I see in a magazine, in a store, on a blog, wherever. I'm not that creative to be able to do this all on my own!
I used to be able to sing. If you know me personally, you are probably laughing right now. But I did. And I loved it. And I was decently good. But then something happened and I became super shy about it and I quit. And now I can't carry a tune. You see, I believe that my singing was a gift from God, a gift that He intended to use for the good of His kingdom. And I stopped allowing that to happen. I became selfish with it and He took it away from me.
I would hate for Him to take this away too. Everything I do, all of my creativity, all of my passion for pursuing this hobby, comes from Him. He gave it to me as a gift. And I truly believe that this is something that will be used to glorify Him. So of course I am going to share it with others. If I don't, what's the point? I don't have the right to be selfish or shy with it. I learned my lesson the first time.
So, finally on to the tutorial. If you actually read through all of that, I'm amazed! But thanks for reading :)
Ok, so as I said before, this is all inspired by Miss Mustard Seed's French Blue Chairs. I would suggest that you read her tutorial
here first because I am going to share with you the things that I did differently. I took a few short cuts.
So the chair had a great crackle to it when I started:
I did not want to loose that texture because there was no way that I would be able to achieve it on my own. It is something that only comes from being REALLY old. Therefore, I did NOT sand the chair AT ALL in the beginning. I only hosed it down with water and let it dry out in the sun.
Then, I cheated and used spray primer because I was kind of lazy and honestly, spray primer is easier to use {most of the time}. I just made sure to shake the can often and put it on THIN.
After the primer dried, I cheated AGAIN and used spray paint! I'm sure this may shock some of you, but I was really afraid of losing the original texture and I thought that maybe spray paint would prevent that from happening. And it worked! It actually helped to draw out the crackle more. Usually, I sand down a piece after priming and before painting, but I did not do this with the chair.
This is Krylon Gloss Bahama Sea. I used two VERY LIGHT coats and I let the first coat completely dry for 24 hours before I proceeded with the second coat.
After the blue dried completely, I used a "dry-brush" technique with a light gray. When I say dry-brush, I mean I wiped almost ALL of the paint off of the paintbrush before I painted on the chair. I also used very light and quick strokes. I didn't want to cover the blue completely but I wanted the gray to be the predominant color. I'd say that I probably covered about 70% of the chair with the light gray strokes. This is the gray that I used, a sample size from Home Depot:
Next, after allowing the gray to dry completely, I sanded down the entire chair with 80-grit sandpaper, per Miss Mustard Seed's recommendation. Honestly, I was terrified to use 80-grit because I was so afraid that I was going to rub off too much. But Miss Mustard Seed was right and I am so glad that I followed her instructions!
After the sanding, comes the glaze. This is what I used:
Valspar Translucent Color Glaze in Mocha from Lowes.
I don't know if this is the right way to do it, but I added a little bit of water to thin it down. I think the glaze is WAY too "goopey" and thick in its natural state. The water helps the glaze go on a little more smoothly. I brushed the mixture over the entire chair with a paintbrush. Typically, when I "antique" a piece, I immediately rub the stain/glaze with a lint-free towel. But I didn't do that this time. It may be because the glaze was thin, but when I started wiping, it came completely off. So instead, I just left it all on there and let it dry for about an hour or two. Then I came back and lightly wiped it with a lint-free cloth {once it was almost all the way dry}. Much better!
Ok, so that's it. That is where I stopped. I will be working on the upholstery tomorrow. Wish me luck!! If it works, I'll tell you how I do that too.
Hope this helps...And if you have any questions, just ask!
xo
LeAnne
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