A Color Wash in Layered Greys

I’m SO excited to share this post with you tonight as it is the first furniture project I’ve completed in my new home.  Please read on for all the details on how to do a Color Wash in Layered Greys.

This is the “before” picture of a buffet that we found at a great local antique/junk store.  It was very dark in the store and the buffet was kind of hidden behind a lot of other stuff so I wasn’t sure of the condition of the piece until Mr. OTN brought it home.  I thought the burled wood on the drawer fronts might be worth restoring but it is veneer and had a lot of hairline cracks on the surface so I decided to just paint over it.

The top had some surface scratches but they didn’t look too deep so I decided to see if I could sand back and re-stain the wood.

Here is the “after” of my gorgeous new buffet.  I used two tones of grey, painting on the darker color first and then adding a color wash of the lighter grey.  I then used white wax as a finish.  I have a ton of “how to” pictures and also some other shots of the piece so read on please . . .

I began with a color I had custom mixed at Home Depot to match the Annie Sloan chalk paint color French Linen.  I buy the sample sizes and make my own chalk paint.  I’ve tested and reviewed several home made chalk paint recipes and my favorite can be found HERE

After the first color was dry I painted on a wash of Home Depot’s version of ASCP Country Grey.  This was also made with my home made chalk paint recipe and watered down quite a bit so it would wipe off easily.

Here I’ve wiped it off using one swipe of a crunched up paper towel.  The important thing here is to use a new surface of the paper towel for each swipe.  Otherwise you’ll be putting paint from the paper towel back onto your piece of furniture and it sort of ruins the look you’re going for in a wash.

After everything was dry I used some Miss Mustard Seed white wax to seal the paint.  It is a different look completely than some of the pieces I’ve done with dark or clear wax and I really like it on this piece.  According to the ASCP website you can add white chalk paint to clear wax to get the same effect.

I sanded the old finish off the top of the piece and, luckily, there weren’t any deep scratches that couldn’t be removed.

I used a Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner by MinWax to prepare the wood to receive a smooth stain, then stained the top with MinWax Wood Finish in the color Cherry.

Finally, I sealed the wood with three coats of a water based Polycrylic, also by MinWax.  I used a clear satin finish for this piece.

So this is my new buffet standing all alone in my new dining room.

The wallpaper is in the process of being stripped behind her but that job has become bigger than I ever imagined . . . and I’ve removed a lot of wallpaper in my day!

So far I’ve removed the second layer of wallpaper and in doing so found that the first layer was glued directly to the sheetrock, without the use of any sizing to prepare the surface . . . Ugh!

So I’m working on tearing it off one little piece at a time with my steamer in one hand and my scraper in the other.

I’ll be moving a Craigslist dining room table and chairs into the dining room for our Thanksgiving dinner.  They too are in need a lot of work but just a good cleaning will have to do for now.  Chairs take hours and hours to paint and, as my sister said, “Don’t worry about the house.  FOOD is all that is important!”  Haha!  Food AND family.  I’m so happy that my sister and her hubby are coming out from SoCal for the holiday and also that we’ll have our dear college friend Holly here with us as well. 

By the way, remember the old tarnished brass hardware?  I rubbed just a touch of Martha Stewart’s Metallic Craft Paint in Silver over the metal.  Not too much as I wanted the dark color to still show through.

 I’m pretty happy with this piece and I’m excited about my vision for this room.  I’m not sure what colors I’ll use on the dining room set.  Maybe the same colors but in the reverse order for a completely different look with the same color base.  I’ll have to do some experimenting to see what feels right.

I do have a color scheme in mind for this room by the way and my grey buffet with the bluish undertones fits right in.

Here’s a sneak peek at my inspiration piece.  Curious?  If you’d like to see more pictures of this piece and hear the story behind it, please join me tomorrow for Freedom Friday – On Becoming The Person You Were Created to Be.

Blessings,