Reinvention in 2021

There have been so many changes this year for most everyone I know!

Homeschooling...check

Working from home...check

Someone loosing a job in the household...check

Health Scare....check

And I genuinely think and feel my family has been so deeply fortunate. During this time there has been a journey of growth, many times painful and VERY bumpy! For me, I have started to rediscover my artistic and creative nature. I gave myself that gift.

World in chaos....go strip a piece of furniture lol. I am fortunate as a designer to be able to envision what a piece COULD be. We have had this table in our basement for six years. It is special to my husband not because of it's beauty but because this was the table that he fed his little girl her breakfast, helped her with her homework, played games with her. She is now all grown up and in college and we are so proud of her. So, rather than the table being tucked away because the honey colored oak was rather dated, I decided to start an experiment. If you are interested in what I used I will place affiliate links below.

So, this is where I started. I think every family had one of these in either the 80's or 90's? BUT it is a very solid oak table. so I stripped the top and gave it a good sanding.

Next step was to try a new product that I had seen used in videos but had never tried myself. #Betterwithage was applied with a synthetic brush in long even strokes and I just allowed it to air dry. This is a really interesting product, it reacts with the natural tannins in woods such as oak, walnut and mahogany and creates a very natural grey stain as if the wood had been exposed outdoors for many years.

I was looking for a cerused look to highlight the graining of the wood so I used #cerusingwax on the top so it would hang up in the graining of the oak. the photo on the left is with cerusing wax and the right side is only with better with age. You can still see some residual rings in the wood ghosting through without the cerusing wax but with it is masked. I allowed the wax to cure for 24 hour and then just gave it a good buffing.

Next, I decided to add a detail with #gelartink and a Moroccan #meshstencil. I used painters tape to mask areas where I did not want the ink and used a mesh stencil and white gel art ink to create the border detail.

The top I treated the same way with a moroccan medallions that I cut out from the mesh stencil. I found I had to apply half at a time and allow it to cure to minimize smearing. Fortunately the cerusing wax masks this!

The base was probably the most time consuming to get a an aged crackle effect. I actually started this months ago and would only work on it when I was teaching furniture design to show students what this process looks like.

I started with a base coat of One Step Paint in #bauhausbuff . I LOVE THIS STUFF! I don't have to strip the base I could just paint right over it after cleaning it with #cleanslate to make sure I removed any oils or waxes. Worked like a charm! Next I layered #crackedpatina and allowed to cure. Brushed on #almondaze and pulled the paint and allowed to crackle. Another coat of cracked patina, allowed to cure and applied #selznick grey. It looked a HOT MESS at this point but I had done the layering before and had faith that I could pull it all together. Can't bake a cake without cracking a few eggs!

You can see on the base of the legs to the right what the finish looked like before I started adding milk paint,

The next step was to do just that, 2 coats of milk piant in #pompeiigrey . This step requires patience. For anyone who has not worked with this medium it is very different than regular paint! It is MUCH runnier and thus you have to apply it on a horizontal surface as much as possible. So I would apply it on one side and go work on something else while it ws curing, rotate the base once it was dry and repeat. It does cure fairly quickly. Be sure to use a chip brush for this step, it holds the paint and pigment particles better than a synthetic brush.

When two coats had been applied I then took #antiquingglaze and lifted the milk paint in certain areas to allow the other layers to peak through. I used a natural spong for this.

Applications of #lightwax, #darkwax and #dustofages followed. This finish was time consuming, but I do think the end results were worth it.

Very cool, crusty finish with part of all those colors coming through. Authentic aging can't be rushed!!!!