Hand Stained Iris Accent Table

Iris - a beauty of spring and summer. One of my favorite flowers, yet one I have never grown, just admired in others' gardens.

I had a Queen Anne accent table that was in need of a little life ~ the perfect canvas for a beautiful iris.

I stripped her down, refinished with a beautiful, rich mahogany stain and got started on the staining process of the bearded iris.

At this stage, I was beyond frustrated. I turned to my husband and said "I may actually have to scrap this one and sand it back down!" I just wasn't "seeing" it the way I wanted to, and it was taking so long. I kept going over and over the same area. So I decided to move on away from this area and see if it would come to light for me.

And it did!!

At this point, I was at a bit of a stand still on whether to paint the base, paint the background, or stain the background. Most votes were for painting the base and background black so that the iris would pop off the table.

I almost went that route, as I love the look of Velvet Finishes' Luxurious, which you can see on my Dogwood Library Table:

I also used Luxurious to update the legs and apron on my Bicycle Writing Desk

{I'm so much happier with the darker base to this desk!}

Back to the Iris Table...

I knew that with staining, I could still achieve depth & dimension and have the iris "pop" off the table without having to paint. I'm a lover of cherry and mahogany and wanted to showcase what I consider a beautiful wood and style (Queen Anne). So, I opted for staining with deep shading behind the iris.

I love how the grain of the wood also plays into the wave of the petals.

I wanted to give a little surprise to that drawer, so I added a mixture of Velvet Finishes' Handsome and Eloquent paints to create this beautiful, lavender-ish color.