Little Black Chess Piece Table

Chess Piece
Table Before

This little gem is another furniture item to add to our collection of painted black tables. As like the previous posting, our customer had envisioned this table being stripped and stained, but like the last table the wood beneath the gray paint was simply not stainable. It was splotchy and had absorbed the paint into the wood grain. There were two coats of paint on this table, black then gray on top of the black. It was also never primed, which contributed to the discoloration of the

Chess Piece
Table After

wood, making it not stainable. 

So, black was chosen once again as the color choice because it is popular for modern life and matches everything. This little gem was only about 16” in diameter and only about 24” tall, so not very big but big enough to keep a lamp or set down a cup of coffee. 

Needless to say the stripping process was intense and took a couple of days to remove all that paint enough for it to be properly primed and prepared to receive the new paint, which for this table we chose to spray on since it was late summer. We generally can’t paint in the colder months because it’s just too cold and the spray painting doesn’t work very well in cold weather. The finished black table was outstanding and made a huge difference. I told Jim I think the table looked like a large chess piece because of the interesting detail on the underside of the top, lending it a chess piece look. Very cute and very functional, this little chess piece table is once again a nice addition to the customer’s room.

From Amish to Amazing!

Amish Dining Set Before

Amish Dining Set After

This was a very well made, but dated Amish table and chairs set
which needed an update to match a newly remodeled kitchen. The table and chairs set was gorgeous oak with a large base. My client had seen a photo on Pinterest with a table and chairs set that had stain on the tabletop and seats and the rest was painted off white. It was a great look, so the decision was made. We received the table and chairs, then got to work.

The first step was to sand everything, top to bottom, then stripping the chair seats and tabletop, so it would accept the stain. With all the details in the wood, spindles and such, this was quite the time consuming task, which required a lot of patience and sanding tools of all kinds. Large sanding blocks for bigger areas and tiny sanding tools for all the crevices between the chair rails and the seats. The right tools make the job so much easier! Nothing replaces carefully hand sanding furniture.

Once all surfaces were sanded, we decided on painting first, saving the stained surfaces for last, since it would be easier painting around the stain instead of staining around the paint. It proved to be the right choice because even with light tack "Frog Tape," some of the stain seeped onto the painted areas, but not a problem as I was able to use an artist's paint brush and touch up those areas easily enough. Simple, not easy. It took hours to do this but the end result was worth the time spent. The paint we used was Sherwin-Williams "eggwhite," which was a soft off white, perfect for the "Country French" style the clients wanted. This new color matched their kitchen cabinets and blended right in with the newly remodeled kitchen. The end result is the clients got exactly what they had envisioned and it looked amazing!

Below, I had a bit my fun with my photo computer program and "merged" a "before" and "after" photo of one of the chairs so you can see what it looked like prior to the new finishes. It's not easy to create this kind of photo, because you literally have to be standing in the exact same position for each photo, then make them look like they are the same photo, even though they were taken weeks apart. It's a great way to see on one photo the huge difference a right redo makes for a worn out item of furniture. This was definitely a challenging job with stunning results.