Painting this beauty was a bold move for me. For some reason, pieces of furniture painted with dark colors seem to command more respect. But I’ve been afraid to experiment, until now. Enter the navy end table:
This color was inspired by a commissioned piece I worked on last week. I have been painting step stools for kids to use in bathrooms for as long as I can remember. This particular client asked that I paint the base of her stool navy, and add something coastal-inspired to the top in white. She requested a distressed finish to match the style of furniture in her home. I was so happy with how the stool turned out that I decided to use the same technique on an end table (instructions to follow). Here’s a pic of the kids’ stool I painted:
And now I have a confession to make: I did not keep careful notes on how I painted the step stool so, the end table–while I still love it–didn’t come out exactly as planned. The blue is just, off. Can you tell? I failed to mix a bit of black latex paint into the blue paint to make the true navy hue that I achieved with the step stool. Live and learn, I suppose. But every time I look at my end table I am going to think of my mistake!
Anyway, I digress. To paint this end table, I prepared the surface with a quick sand with a fine grit sandpaper. Because I had no intention of using stain on large areas of bare wood, I just needed to rough up the surface a bit to accept the paint. I mixed my own chalk paint using Plaster of Paris, again. Did you see the last table I painted with a homemade chalk paint? The recipe is simple: mix 1 part Plaster of Paris into 1 part warm water and then add 3 parts latex paint.
I painted the table with 3 coats of chalk paint beginning with the table upside down, as noted in this post. This is what the table looked like before I began sanding and distressing the paint:
I used a sanding sponge to distress the corners and edges of the table top and legs. Once I finished distressing, I wiped the entire table with a cheese cloth (TIP: any lint-free cloth will do) to remove the dust from sanding. I used another piece of cheese cloth to wipe on a thin coat of Rust-Oleum wood stain in Kona, over the entire end table, making sure to concentrate on the areas of bare wood. Once dry, I used a fine grit sandpaper (400) over the top and sides before applying another coat of stain, this time concentrating on the corners. Wiping the stain over the entire painted surface gives it a darker, richer finish:
Once completely dry, I applied 2 coats of Minwax Polycrylic Protective Finish. I’m thinking of experimenting with red next … stay tuned!
