Sunday, April 1, 2012

Happy Heathered Hutch

I promised you I'd post pictures once I finished the hutch and so I am here to make good. 

First, lets revisit the before. 




Its hard to see cause I took these pics in my garage at night but its a dingy white with pink painted on the spindles and hardware.  

I'm very happy with how it turned out. I took a few leaps of faith with this one. First, I bought the paint without sampling it first. Scary! It was almost a mistake cause in my bad lighting I thought it was way too white but then in the daylight (the next day) it was the perfect shade. 

Second I distressed it with a glaze. I'd never done this before but after reading a few tutorials and watching a youtube video or two it seemed fairly easy. In theory it is very easy. You basically wipe on the paint and then wipe off what you don't want. Unless you're a perfectionist like me who had the HARDEST time with messing up my perfect-brush-line-free paint job I had just worked so hard to achieve. What should have probably taken a little over an hour took more like four. It kind went like this paint glaze on, wipe parts off, stare at it a while, decide it was too much, wipe off more, stare at it more, realize I wiped off too much, add more, stare, wipe, stare, add, stare, just start the whole process all over again. But its done and I will say over analyzer aside, I am really happy with the results. 




The third problem I ran into were the handles. I loved their pretty antique look but I could not get the original paint of them for anything. I researched how to do it to death! I soaked them in my crock pot for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT, I added soap, I added laundry detergent, I scrubbed with a nylon brush, a metal stripping brush, and steel wool. I soaked them in chemical stripper, strong stripper, this stuff melted my "stripper safe" gloves in seconds and left me with a lovely chemical burn. But. That. Paint. Did. Not. Budge. So finally I gave up and painted them with my brass paint. They look...ok. They would have been infinitely better if I had been able to regain their natural antique brass shine. They would have fit the look of the hutch so much better. Instead they are little gold glowing beacons of light. I'm going to try going over them with the same glaze I distressed the hutch with to try and tone it down some. I'll let you know how it goes. 

"Resistance is futile!" ~ handles. 


Table isn't done yet. I do have a goal to get all of the sanding done by the end of this week. Its a tall tall order my friend. Tall. But at least I can try. And then if I do maybe, someday you'll actually get to see it. So here it is all done in all its glory! 







 

Oh ya, look what I got! 



Its just a lovely as you'd imagine it to be. I love it!