Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been kinda scattered this week because I was running a ton of errands and I didn't really have a chance to sit down and write. So, here we go!
As stated in my last post, my favorite antique place opened back up after their month long hiatus! Ahhh!!! Happy Happy Joy Joy!! I think they giggled when they saw me walk in the door because it's like "Hey, the addict is back."...yuuup! I went about and did my usual stalking to see if I could find anything I couldn't live without. Given, there were quite a few things I fell inlove with, but Slegers definitely loved it more than me since I wasn't willing to shell out anywhere from 2,000-3,000 euros for a pretty hutch. I'm sure someone will come along that will REALLY love it and take it home. Once I was done trolling the vendor stalls, I started searching for my table since I needed to make arrangements for it's delivery. Ya know, I got this panicked feeling cause I couldn't find it ANYWHERE! It would've been my luck it was tagged wrong and sold to someone else on accident. After a good fifteen minutes of searching, I finally tracked down one of the employees to see if they knew where it was....they hid the table! I mean, REALLY hid it! They stuck it in a corner of the warehouse that was like a cubbyhole that you wouldn't find unless you were moving tarps around. I definitely had a sigh of relief since I've been eyeballing this table for a LONG time! The guy told me they moved it off the showroom floow because after I put the deposit down on it, several people came in after me and were wanting to buy it. SEE!! I had that tingling feeling that I needed to get it last month and I was right!! HA! So, I paid off the remaining balance and scheduled the delivery, in which they were able to drop it off the same day. Yippy!!!
I was told it's carved oak (although it looks like walnut to me), dated around 1890 with Tudor style carving. After a little bit of research on my part, I ended up calling our insurance company to make sure this table received additional coverage when the time comes for us to move. I'll kill whoever wrecks this thing! Here's how the table looks in my kitchen :)
In the midst of talking to the employee's while I was still at the warehouse, I was asking them about potentially staining the table darker since the majority of our funiture is a darker walnut color. They gave me advice in terms of how to obtain the darker color I was seeking...and their method was surprising to me. I was told to use a towl and nylons when the time comes to take the stainer off of the wood. Really? I've never heard of that before. Then again, I never really took on the challenge of staining wood.
So, you take the towl, stick it in the nylon and use that to buff out the polish. When you first apply the polish, you paint in the same direction as the grain..they told me to leave it on anywhere from 2-3 days at a time to allow the color to really sink into the wood. Once you're ready to take it off, use the nylon to buff it out.
Now, as much as I wanted to immediately start working on the table...my brain told me to just test things out on the chair I had purchased. I mean, I got them for a very reasonable price and I'd rather use those as guinea pigs than my table. Let's face it..if I screwed that table up, I might as well shoot myself. I really liked these chairs since they're very sturdy and actually go with the table rather well..the only thing that's wrong with them is you can tell they've been sunbleached by their prior owner. So, I figured a little TLC and elbow grease can restore some color to 'em.
Tell ya what...staining furniture is for the birds! I didn't think it was THAT involved! I painted the stain on and let it soak in for a few days, then tried buffing it out. It's like trying to buff grease! It just kept smearing everywhere! I literally had to work on the chair for about 10 minutes, take a break, come back and start hammering away on it again..so on and so forth. I finally managed to get all the stainer off of it then sealed it up with a conditioner / polish. Now, let's see if you can tell which one went through the staining process:
Honestly, can you tell which one was worked on?? I'm interested in peoples feedback..cause to be blunt, if ya'll can't tell which one is which, then there's a part of me that doesn't wanna deal with staining the other three chairs, lol.
In addition to staining the chair, I worked on my trogs since some of them definitely needed some staining TLC. There was one I bought and when I washed it, ALL of the color washed out of it! Talk about a shocker! It went from a pretty walnut color, to gray. Sad! So, here's a pic of the color difference with the stainer on it now verses how it looked before:
So yeah...it's definitely time consuming when it comes to staining and polishing old furniture. I'll most likely finish the rest of the chairs, but I'll definitely be taking my time with them..at least for the next few days since I burned the crap out of my hand last night and it's now all red, angry, swollen and blistering. I was pouring out boiling water cause the noodles I was cooking were ready..lost my grip on the strainer and a good couple of quarts spilled all over my hand. Talk about misery!! Bleh!!
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