a grain sack inspired solution

 Hello friends!

This week's project combines several of my latest obsessions in a glorious way.

Obsession #1.   Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint. It has seriously rocked my world and I can't stop painting. My retailer stock of milk paint is on it's way shortly so let me know if you want to preorder! This is my fourth (YES, FOURTH) project with one little quart of paint. The milk paint is so pigment rich that so far I've gotten amazing coverage with two coats. (Sometimes one!) That is phenomenal for red!

                                                 

Obsession #2.    Antique Grain Sacks. Have you fallen in love with them yet? I admit, I'm late to the party on this one, but I'm here now and I think I'm just going to curl up into one and stay put.

                                        

Obsession #3.    Autumn.   I am longing for Fall in a big way. I want reds, yellows, creams, and oranges and I want them now. This set features the milk paint in "Tricycle."



4. Antique Furniture. Ok, that might not be a newsflash, but, still, I thought I'd throw it in there.



Anywho...so my darling friend Greg sold me this old trestle table because (although he loved it) it was damaged in a way that required more TLC than he cared to participate in. There was a major gouge in the top - and not one that was cute, or could work in a "Wow, that table is so distressed and cool" kind of way... No, this was like, "OMG, what happened to that poor table?" kind of way. But it was way too cool to curb and I had an idea that I'd been waiting to try. This was just the table to try it out on!

Sadly, I forgot to take a "before" shot. I am so, SO mad at myself because this gouge was nasty. So, you will just have to imagine a big gaping hole that looked like the table was dropped out of the sky and fell onto a 3" diameter steel pipe, bounced off, then rolled over to die. It would need at least partial painting because there was no way to completely salvage the top. SinceI really prefer a wood table top I wanted to preserve as much of it as I could. Enter the grain sack runner concept. I painted a runner down the center of the table and it completely concealed the patched-up damage. Woo Hoo!

I started by taping off a 10" stripe going right down the middle and painting two coats of a lovely creamy shade. Once that was dry, I took a darker shade that I mixed up (more of a greyish-brown linen color) and dabbed my brush into that, then wiped all the excess paint onto a rag so the brush was basically dry , then lightly swooshed it. (For the newbies; this technique is shockingly called "drybrushing) First I swooshed from left to right, then up and down the cream stripe. Then I repeated the drybrushing with white. This basically just served to give the simple cream stripe the look of fabric. Now, no one anywhere is going to try to pull this runner off and wash it, it's not that realistic, but, we still do what we can to make it look nice.

Then I measured out the red stripes and got my Tricycle milk paint ready. I painted the stripes with two coats, waited for it to dry, then removed the tape. I sanded the red back down a little to reveal some of the cream below and then dark waxed the whole table top. Yep, right over the cream, straight dark wax. No clear because I wanted it dark and worn looking.

 

So you can see it's clearly not as "nubby" looking, but, sanding down the red along with all that drybrushing gave it some  grain sacky texture.


  Here's the whole set...




I super duper love the old chairs that I picked up from an antique dealer in town. He said they were at least 70 years old...they were really shabby, so I sanded themdown, gave them a coat of "Tricycle" and stained and sealed the seats. Good as new. But kinda better than new, right? Cause they're old. :)



This set is currently up for sale at Adjectives Market in Altamonte Springs, FL for $525.

For all you wonderful blog followers of mine - yes, this is the set I blogged about in my post "the cost of handmade."   Thanks for all your support on that - you guys seriously had my back and gave me a huge case of the warm & fuzzies.

Till next time - Happy Painting!

Jess