Fragrance Girl

Dont be afraid~~ A table re-do

Bear with me while I reminisce about the past.

I dont have many memories of when I was a small child, living in a grand house (although we slept in the horrifying basement) that belonged to my paternal Grandmother. My memories of that house are of the gorgeous carved fireplace, the amazing grand spiral staircase and what we lovingly called 'the gully' in the backyard. My Great-Grandfather even had a small summer cottage in 'the gully' that we loved to play in. Although I was positive Big Foot lived down there and was going to come and take me away... we had a blast there.

My Grandmother passed away when I was in 1st grade. It was then that our family moved to 'the country'. There were very few houses and fewer kids to play with. We could see bats flying around at night and we spent hours and hours playing in the open fields.

I have mentioned that I got my fear of decorating from my Mother. Now that I'm older, I realize that she wanted so much to have a beautiful home, and for awhile... it was. My parents had 6 children... and a house full of priceless antiques that were inherited from my Grandmother. Who in their right mind would think that 6 children would/could appreciate these things? Let me say... we were brutal! If my Mom were still alive, I would apologize for that and ask her what she was thinking?!? So many beautiful things... we destroyed. We were kids.

When my Mom passed away in October 2010, there wasnt anything that I wanted to remind me of that time. But, that is another story for another day! When we cleaned out her apartment I noticed the console table that graced the front room of her house for as long as I can remember. It was in horrible shape. Nobody wanted it... so it ended up in my house. It's been moved from room to room in the past 6 months, begging for some love and attention.

I finally decided to make that table my own.

I did some research on the interwebs and decided to try painting and glazing the old lady. I actually loved the weathering on the top of the table so, that was going to stay. I papered & taped over the top:

Paint me!!
Since this baby was covered in who knows how many coats of paint/stain and I wanted to paint it white. A very good primer was in order.

I said a little prayer and sprayed away. The secret to getting a nice even coat with spray paint is short, controlled sprays. Several light coats is better than 1 drippy coat. If you get drips, either wipe off and respray or sand when dry and respray. Here she is all ready to be painted:

Already looking better eh?
Since I'm going for a cottage look in our house, I decided to paint her one of the all time best white's evah... 'Heirloom White'. A soft, warm white. I painted 2 light coats and left her to dry while I tried to figure out my glaze. My research on the interwebs taught me that you must tint your own glaze. Which is good since I could only find a quart and really didnt need that much. More for later projects! If you want brown, use brown paint to tint. If you want black, use black. I'm sure you get it. The distressed with black thing is a little 'goth' for me so I went with Burnt Umber in my glaze. I used a damp cloth to lightly wipe the glaze on and then wiped it right back off. I didn't want it too heavy.

And... WA LA!:

Isnt she BEAUTIFUL?!? Look at these gorgeous details:

And here she is in all her glory in the dining room:

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