Send Help!! The chronicles of one woman's acute decorating meltdown. (Pt. 1)

I'm in a decorating tail-spin. Everything is out of control and I'm not sure there is an end in sight.

Has that ever happened to you. I've got too many projects going on and can't seem to get any finished and my house is a complete and total wreck. I'm serious. There is not a clean room in the house. In fact, it starts in the garage and just gets worse the further you go. 

I have round dining table and four chairs in my garage that I've been working on for a couple of weeks. It's too hot to be out there now and I'm so frustrated with how it's going I've lost motivation.

Here's how they looked when they arrived in my garage (fifty bucks off craigslist)

 

Dark and gummy. Covered in scratches, crayon, nail polish, pen marks... you name it. Someone was not treating this set with much love. I could see beyond all that. What I saw were those curvy legs. That chunky (solid wood) top. The chairs are remarkably comfortable.  Since the top is solid wood and quite thick, I decided to strip it and see how it looked under all that dark stain and varnish (and nail polish and grease).

It was amazing how easy the gunk came off. I applied some stripper and it peeled right off. I gave it a very heavy sanding, I wanted to get beyond the stain and see how the wood looked. I didn't mind the dents and scratches, in fact I loved them. I did not love the warm yellow, orange color left from the stain. Once I was able to sand beyond that was delighted at how the wood looked. Light and weathered. It made my heart sing. I was so excited. I cleaned the chairs well (or so I thought- we'll get back to that later) and sprayed them along with the table legs white. My plan was to give them a light distressing, give the top a protective clear coat and be done. Well. That hasn't quite happened yet.

The light distressing turned into this

 

as the white paint started coming off in sheets. This is way more chippy and distressed than I had envisioned. Not at all the look I'm going for. I'll have to completely strip all four chairs and start over. All four curvy, spindly chairs. Sniff, sniff... I'm not happy about this.

And the table. With the first swipe of the brush applying this, I knew it wasn't the look I wanted. All the golden yellow tones in the wood came to life. I'm not a warm golden type girl. I like cool greys, soft whites. I'm sure this would be beautiful to some, but not to me. Not today.

I'm not sure where to go from here. How to achieve the look I want. I want it to look like it did without any finish, but that is not practical for a dining table. Maybe I should sand it down good, give it a wash with a very watered down greyish white paint, then a protective top coat???

I don't know. I do know it's going to have to cool down some first.

I have plenty to do to keep me busy inside. Shall we go there? I'm not sure you want to and I'm pretty sure I don't want you to. Let me try to explain my way out of this first- try to give you some insight into my decorating insanity. Let's talk about it tomorrow, shall we? It could go long.

Comments

[Katrien]

Oh, this sounds so familiar (especially 'too many projects' and 'not a clean room':). My advice: just stay calm and keep going. All of a sudden it will all fall back into place!

[cyndi]

Wow way too familiar it seams that one project motivates another until there are a mountain of them. When this happens to my ( which it often does ) I make a master list and then a lot of mini lists and then start crossing off what gets done this is what what works for me. as for the table
I sure wish I could help out. but I know you will come up with something fab.

[Janet]

I know that Minwax makes a stain & sealer in one that is a white wash/gray. Go look at your local Big Box Store they have a lot os samples. You will have to strip the laquer product. Good luck!

[Kelly G.]

look into Pickling the wood. I have not ever done it, but from what I have read, I believe this may be the look you are going for (it basically bleaches out the wood giving it that white look)

[Tonya Richard]

That table is beautiful, your plan sounds like it may work, can't wait to see the finished product. My dh found a beautiful old drop leaf round table in the trash (yes trash!) several weeks ago. The date stamped on the bottom says 1963. He fixed it, and now I need to figure out how I want to paint it.

[Aunt LoLo]

My mother used to sand all the, umm...."love" off of our dining table, and then just rub gobs of mineral oil into it to seal it. Might that work for you??

[Elaine]

I have faith this project will be beautiful when you are finished with your talented handy-work on it!

[Sarah]

Oh those chairs bring back memories. My mom and dad had chairs like that for as long as I can remember in their kitchen, just recently retiring them from use.

[Karen Crosby]

Have you tried primer? I'm doing walls & doors & the primer sticks to my hands much more than latex paint, very hard to scrub off. So maybe it would help you with this paint project. You could try a section to see if it works without committing a whole chair.

[tammyCA]

Oh, boy I know what you mean about a bunch of projects lined up. And, then when a project isn't going the way you had hoped. Did you use a product to clean the stripper residue off? I don't know what it is called but the stripper container should say. That's surprising about the clear varnish giving a warm tone - is it the nature of the wood? I am leary of clear varnish after having one turn yellow on a painted dresser! I think I'll use wood wax...ah, wait I just remembered Kitty Bartholomew stripped a wood mantle of paint and she used that to keep the original wood...she used Briwax. Her book is "Decorating Style" where she raves about it.
good luck! Now back to my painting before the nice weather turns brutal. :)