Cherry Side Table Transforms....

Do any of you remember the Bombay Company that had mostly Cherry wood furnishings and lots of creative pieces. We had an outlet store near where I live, so I was always able to get really good deals. This little cutie was one of those pieces I picked up...

I know you can't see the full table, but this was the only picture I could come up with (since I once again forgot to take my before picture). This piece is probably 20 or so years old and has aged pretty well, but it DOES show a bit of wear on the finish (scratches).

I actually really do like this table, but it is something I don't use much ... my new home has a much more rustic flare than my first couple of homes, so my design tastes have changed to fit my log cabin. So, I decided to turn this little cutie into a "clock" table.

I grabbed two different colors of chalk paint, took a deep breath and wiped some right onto it. It is always difficult for me to paint wood. I was brought up going to many antiques shows and auctions with my grandmother, mother, and sister. So, I acquired a respect for the details and beauty of the wood.

But my desire to create took ahold....

{Disregard the paint cap - that is part of another project .. nothing to do with this one!}

I don't honestly know the name of the color of the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint that I used but it is a great hue of aqua/ mint with grey undertones. I painted the top with Annie Sloan Chalk paint in a creamy tone.

The fabulous thing about chalk paints is that you don't have to do any sanding! That's right... just paint without prep. YAYAY! Sometimes (usually) I water the paint down, but I typically start out with too much water. The best way FOR ME is to dip my brush in the water every couple of reloads. I also brush some off on my "palette" before I start on the actual piece. You will typically have to use two coats to cover.

Here's a tip: I know that I will be distressing this in the end, so I want to make sure the under color is something that I want to see peek through at the end. In this case, I think the mahogany tone will be just fine.

I'm starting to use a new process of painting with stain! Intersting. But I love using stain to shadow things so I decided to start trying to paint with it. I'm actually quite enjoying it, as I feel it is more forgiving. But you have to get the feel for it and know how it will react with your piece and with the paint underneath. I had a little mishap with this project, which I will get into later... But for now, this next picture shows the start of the painting/staining of the clock face .

The first two rings around the clock are a bit heavy, but I knew that I would be doing some distressing at the end, so that was okay with me. The numerals were a challenge, as I had to have a very steady hand! Does anyone see the error in design?...

For the record, I looked it up and some French designs used "IIII" instead of "IV" for the number "4"... there are different theories as to why but I guess either is or was acceptable.

I wanted to use mostly grey hues, but I wanted the pendulum to have a brown and or "brass" look to stand out. This is where the mishap started.... I had some sample stains I had sent for (luckily were free) for our deck that did not work out AT ALL. I kept them just to use in other projects. I thought this would be a good opportunity to pull them out... WELL, the problem was.... these stains were supposed to be so great at repelling water that they never dried.. I kept waiting and waiting, but all it would do was smear. I worked with it as best I could and thought I was done. The following pictures show you the images all done and filled in and shaded...

I put the clock aside for a couple of days hoping it would dry. The next step is to use wax and I knew I wouldn't be able to do that with the stain smearing so.

So I had to bite the bullet and wipe off all the stain on the pendulum. And started that part over. I went back to my usual stain in a walnut hue.

Still some work to do on the pendulum but it was still a little "smeary" so I went ahead and put a light coat of spray poly on the top of the table. At least now it had stopped smearing and I could do some more work. I wasn't sure how this would affect my distressing later, but it was really the only option I had at this point.

Always a learning process....

At this point I had to take some time off.. an unexpected trip to see my family, which worked out ok because I had to wait for my replenshment of Annie Sloan Soft Wax. With thihs wax, you use a wax brush and work it into the table and then rub it in with a soft cloth. Work in sections and buff to a sheen. This is the final top with the wax done. By the way, I decided not to do any distressing on the top.

And now for the base. I put a coat of Annie Sloan Soft Wax on and then did a slight distressing with sanding block. I only did the edges of the legs and the edges around the base. I decided to use the stain again to aged the chalk paint.

After using the stain, I put a final coat of wax on the entire table and again rubbed it in and buffed it. When I used the wax on the base of the table, it did take some of the stain off. This was fine with me, and I'm not sure if this was because I didn't wait long enough for the stain to completely soak in, but then again, i'm not positive the stain would have completely soaked into the wax anyway. At any rate, it was fine with the look I was going for. Here is a comparison of the base before wax and distress to the after: