The new owner of the antique empire wardrobe picked up a neat little end table and asked me to refinish it for her. It had previously been painted red with a heavy dark stain on top of it.
My client wanted the red paint removed and to have it repainted in Old White with some distressing. I decided to try something a little different this time. Instead of using a chemical stripper, I used the Wagner Heat Gun. It was such a time saver and definitely less messy. It does come with its own quirks though. You need a lot of ventilation (outside is best) because the smell of burning paint is not pleasant at all. You also need to keep the heat on the paint as you are scraping. Now this isn't too hard on a flat surface, but it was a little tricky on those legs.
Here is a video of the heat gun in action!
And this is what the little table looked like after I removed all of the paint. The top was pretty rough. It had a good sized split and lots of bumps and bruises. But those legs...those legs were just gorgeous!!
Old White chalk paint is a little tricky to use. It is a little thin and I'm going to say 90% of the time you will have bleed-through when using it. Something about the chalk paint really pulls the tannins out of the wood. It makes your paint look like it has a pink fungus growing out of it. So before I put even thought about painting this table, I put a coat of poly on it. Poly is the only thing that will block the tannins from leaking through.
I still ended up using 3 coats of Old White on this piece. I painted the inside of the drawer in Antibes green. Then I finished this piece off with a new to me wax, CeCe Caldwells clear wax. It is made of all natural ingredients and safe for the environment.
I just love the way it turned out. Old made old again!
What great pieces have you found lately?
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