A while back I mentioned some of my CL finds that we bought in Chicago in order to take to KCMO. Best decision ever by the way, I still have zero idea where folks buy stuff here!
Anyway, one of those finds was this beauty. Or not beauty.
I mentioned at the time that I had plans to fix her up so that she was less poo brown hideous. And she was hideous. As in, I felt the need to explain to the movers that the buffet came that way and I was not responsible for her current state, hideous.
My initial plan was to strip the buffet down to the original wood, and then either seal it, stain it, or maybe treat it with a color wash. So, I got to it with my handy stripper, scraper, and mineral salts. At first, it seemed to be going well. I was stripping in bursts around work (so evenings and one weekend), so it was not fast, but there was progress.
Then I realized that in certain areas the paint was just NOT coming off the way that it should be. The one thing that the previous owners did that even smacked of being correct was use a primer. And it was not clearing on some of the smaller sections. It is also possible that my stripper was losing its effectiveness.
It was at this point that I realized I was going to have to paint the sucker. Which is NOT what I originally wanted to do. Thankfully, I had already been planning to paint some of the other furniture in the dining room using DIY chalk paint. For those of you who are not familiar, chalk point is all.the.rage. on the home decor blogging scene. There is the awesome stuff called Annie Sloane Chalk Paint or ASCP for short that leaves a wonderful matte finish that is described as being really unique and just fantastic for furniture. Other bonuses are that it dries quickly, covers without primer and is really workable. So, I decided that this buffet would also receive that finish. But, because this paint is not readily available in stores, I also decided to follow one of the 6,000,000 tutorials on line and make my own. This had the added benefit of allowing me to use any color I wanted and of being cheap. The quality is described as not *quite* the same, but how is anyone who ever visits my house going to know that?
The bummer at this point was that I had already started stripping. If I had known from the beginning that I was using chalk paint, I never would have begun the process. But now that I had some pieces very light and others still poo brown, I could see that the paint would ultimately look as though it was two different color shades because of the different bases. So I continued to strip, but really only worried about getting the worst of the brown off and did not focus on getting all of the primer or original brown off.
Then, I painted. I ended up using an oops paint color that I found at Home Depot. It was an olive green, and I added some white that I had to lighten it up, and then added the plaster of paris. The color turned out very nicely, if I do say so myself. Especially since I made a few batches of this stuff freehand,and it still matches.
This sucker was a BEAST to paint. All the damn slats made me want to slit my throat. I also painted it disassembled, and then assembled it again. Going back, I would have painted the top separate but assembled the rest before I painted it. Oh well. Then it was a few layers of wax (which I think I did right!) and it was done. I almost peed my pants I was so excited.
It's not perfect, but it's not poo colored, and so I'll take it! Here's are some slightly more updated photos.
Clearly the way that it is decorated still leaves something to be desired!
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