It felt so good to do these pieces with their wonderful imperfections. Lately I have been doing so many pieces with no distressing that I really need a perfect finish in order to get the 'look' I'm going for. So when I picked up this three piece set (9 drawer pictures to follow) I thought, 'Im blowing the dust off the orbital and doing some serious distressing'.
Its not that distressing pieces is easier...it can take a long time to distress, particularly if you are doing it by hand, but its just a little less worrisome because if there is a little flaw in the finish you don't have to worry and redo it. I actually just recently finished a nine drawer in that deep blue cobalt colour I have been using a lot lately and I think in total I did 8 coats on the top. I kept having problems getting a perfect finish, and then I had trouble with my polyurethane topcoat looking streaky and I just wasn't happy with it. 8, maybe 9 coats later I finally nailed it. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results?
These beauties only took two coats. Much easier. I used Cottage Paint chalkpaint I had in a cream colour and I added some tint to get this blue-based turquoise. I painted it on roughly, deliberately missing parts here and there as it would make distressing easier later.
I used wax on these because there is a strong oak grain. I am not a huge fan of wax, I find it really streaky, but as I have mentioned before I don't mind using it on weathered looking pieces, I also don't mind using it on 'oak' furniture as it doesn't look as streaky over the strong oak grain.
I did all of my sanding before waxing. I like a good dust storm. I did wear a protective mask to save the lungs though. I used the orbital on some parts, and used a piece of coarse sand paper on others and did it by hand.
Some of the nice oak grain.
The before.
Stunning!
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