Turquoise End Tables

Ah Turquoise.  My favorite colour.  Sigh.  I was lucky enough to find these guys a couple of days after I found their big sister (see my earlier post).  I finished them in my favorite colour :) and distressed and let some of the wood poke through.

I made a custom chalk paint for these, and finished with clear wax.  It buffed to such a lovely sheen.

Turquoise Again!

I fell in love with this Sklar-Peppler dresser as soon as I saw it.  It was in fantastic condition, but the brownish colour was pretty uninspiring.  

I decided to pull out my favourite shade of turquoise and make her over.  

She also features small highlights of various shades of blue and some yellow to accent with the hardware.  

The oak grain is still visible through the paint which is something I really love about oak.  It adds a depth and almost gives the furniture a stained-like quality.

I love the swirly detailing on her drawers and cupboards.  I gave her a mild distressing.

Here is a before shot, you can see how lovely she was in her original state too.  It was almost a shame to paint her.  
Almost.  :)

A Tale of Two Sisters The Sequel: Tall Sylvia

Like any good mom, I like to dress my girls as twins.

Ok, so Im lying.  I don't have girls, or any children for that matter.  I do have a cat though, oh, and Mr. Chuckles can behave a lot like a child sometimes.  But no, Im talking about Long Sylvia's twin sister Tall Sylvia. 

I refinished her in much the same way as her sister (pure white chalk paint on the drawers and stain on the body), except this time I used GEL stain, instead of regular stain.  If you read about some of the problems I encountered with stain whilst doing tall Sylvia, then you would understand why.

Gel stain can be applied on top of existing finishes, that is its beauty.  You don't need to sand, or strip away the old finish, you can just lightly sand and then you pretty much apply the stain in the same fashion (wipe on, leave for several minutes, wipe off).  

The stain does not absorb into the wood like regular stain, instead it hovers on top and dries (yay, no tackiness 4 days later).  Plus, it still looks pretty good (not as good as regular stain in my opinion, but not bad).  I used a varathane brand gel stain in dark walnut.  This lady only took me about 5 hours, instead of the 12 her sister took!)