I started what I expected to be a simple project of refinishing my dining room table and six chairs. Only to find myself in the midst of tears, soul searching, ridiculous frustration, and life altering chaos. You could say that therapy for me, is a paintbrush in hand.
Previously I didn't consider myself to be a perfectionist, until ever glob of paint that refused to stick had me cursing in frustration. After 18 hours, my online scouring convinced me that I was using the wrong primer and should sand off the two coats already applied and go with an oil base. In hindsight, I would have been fine with the latex. More cursing as I realized this now 25 hours in. I think they may laugh at me at the paint store.
I was told countless times that I should just throw the whole thing away. There were points in this that I wanted to consider that an option. Maybe just setting the whole thing on fire. hmm.
Apparently I do not handle things well when they don't go my way.
I did not toss it, burn it, or destroy it. I sanded, wiped, primed, painted, distressed, sealed, stapled, cut, padded, finished.
I'd say I'm about 100 hours in. For those of you who do this, I'm sure I did a million things wrong. However, I learned a lot as well. I'm happy to say that I persevered and it felt good. It took me a year to complete this project. I may be a little insane, but I'm getting ready to start my next little task.
I love working on furniture. I love refinishing. I love watching something horrible become beautiful. I think I may have caught a bug.
More than that I love proving to myself that I can finish what I begin. That I am faithful.
Who knew there was so much to learn from wood and paint. :)
Technically there are still two chairs left to finish, but the pads are on, I'm just waiting for more oilcloth. There was a moment that I was going to cover the chairs in burlap, but after a day watching my kids exist, we switched to the easily cleaned oil cloth.
Happiness is, not using a table cloth every day.
2 comments:
Beautiful Cherylyn. I applaud your endeavor. I have painted my share of dining sets and cried too. I wish I had known you were taking on such a task as I may have been able to offer a little advice just from my experiences (certainly not because Im any kind of professional). lol
Either way, its beautiful. Nicely done!
great job! that is such hard work! at this point, i seriously couldn't imagine taking that on... so much work. good job sticking it out til it was finished.
my recent post: when you have white paper and a bit of red paint
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