white-washed everything...

Before I found out I was pregnant, I was diligently tearing apart a pair of wing backed chairs. Needless to say, I was laid up for a good six months for the first two trimesters and they took a back seat. One has been completely stripped of its fabric, varnish and stain. The other made a nice place to lay clean laundry over the back.

My original plan was to coat the exposed wood legs in the chemistry experiment I had been concocting by oxidizing steel wool in distilled vinegar. After I had stripped the legs of the varnish, stand and then sanded them smooth, I eagerly painted on my weathering stain. While it did oxidize the wood, it also made it more of a rusty color instead of the weathered grey look I was hoping for.

As the chair sat upside-down all summer, I had some time to ponder what I would do to fix the problem. While out grabbing something more comfy to fit in, Brett and I walked through a store which is donned with antique and refinished furniture. As he walked past the fitting rooms, he was sucked into an old chair that had been white washed and re-upholstered a grey color.

Being the lumberjack that he is, he rubbed his hands over the wood and evaluated its color and grain. He continued to tell me how much he was enamored by this chair. My heart kept for joy - that was a white-washed chair! While Brett usually prefers the natural wood grain of anything versus my love for transforming with paint, I was surprised to heard him say he thought white washing the wingback chair legs would be a great idea. What a genius my man is...here it took me all summer and I didn't think of that solution to fix the legs. 

This was the perfect small project to break into one evening while he was out at a ball game. I started with a small amount of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Antique White and mixed it with equal parts water. Brett has also been doing the laundry while I am down and out, so we suddenly have a plethora of shrunken t-shirts to use as rags.

First I painted on a layer of the chalk paint over the entire leg. Letting it seep into the grain for a moment, I then wiped off the execs paint with the wood grain with a dry t-shirt rag. After the dry rag, I took a rag damp with water and wiped it off one more time to get to my desired color. Presto - the legs turned a beautiful weathered wood grey all in under 15 minutes. Last, I sealed the legs by rubbing a coat of Annie Sloan's Clear Soft Wax over the legs once the paint had dried completely (which took all of about 10 minutes).

Notice the old pieces of velvet in the corner that will act as the pattern for when I re-upholster the chair....

And a gentle reminder of where we started....

Guess I got a little carried away; I did a board for a future project that I also had stained with the oxidized solution...oops. Stay tuned for that project; it involves electrical work.