Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Currently not very happy....

Okay, thing is we bought an unfinished dining room table, 6 chairs, and 4 counter stools. It was a steal. Unfinished?? No problem, I thought, I can handle it..how hard can it be to stain and paint??
After much angst, I have successfully painted and distressed 5 of the chairs. They look good to me. The other chair I painted a color that I didn't like so it has yet to be stripped. I tried the chemical strip and it didn't get me very far. I tried a little electric sander...not sure I was doing it right..it certainly vibrated my arm off but I didn't see much difference in the chair..maybe it needed a more coarse sandpaper. Anyway, I started attempting the table stain today. I am crestfallen....seriously...it isn't going as planned. The color is uneven....certain places look blotchy...I have looked it up...apparently softwood doesn't stain as well as hardwood. No kidding.... Anyway, ugh! I hate feeling incapable. It reeks... And after I realized my fingers were poking through my latex gloves, I gathered that the gloves were pointless....now I have nicely stained nails....not that I'm a high-maintenance manicured girl by any stretch of the imagination...(have you ever gardened and milked with fake nails...I think not....) I am, as Anne of Green Gables so eloquently stated, "In the depths of despair"...oh the agony of do-it-yourself when you don't have enough background knowledge to do a job correctly. Maybe I'll end up painting it brown and distressing it. I like the French Country farmhouse look...open, airy, natural...splashes of blue, red, and yellow....like Van Gogh's sunflower painting. Anyway, I suppose aside from just venting, I am also trying to avoid the next step...thing is, I'm not sure what the next step is.....

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