Raise your hand if you like Craft and Do-it-yourself projects. I LOVE them! There’s something about making something really cool and unique. It gives me a sense of pride, accomplishment, and satisfaction. It’s also great therapy! Plus, why would I pay someone when I can do it myself?? I love learning fun skills. Or sometimes, at least trying to learn new skills, then crashing and burning, lets me know that I need to hire it out. My husband and I are great doing diy projects together. But when it comes to crafty ones, well, he has zero interest. So, my crafty side connects with girlfriends, or I end up doing these projects by myself. Again, great (cheap) therapy.
A couple years ago I developed a bit of an interest, a temporary obsession, really, in redecorating my living room. I made an obscene number of trips to Hobby Lobby, Gordman’s, and HomeGoods buying and returning, buying and returning. It was painful. I blame my new built-in shelves and remodeled fireplace mantel catapulting me into redecorating mode. I finally got everything acceptable, but I’ve been looking for a really cool set of book ends ever since. I found ‘the ones’ at a great little shop in Northwest Arkansas called Sassafras. They were distressed, and wood, and decorative, and priced right. Did I mention they were really cool?? I loved everything about them except the color scheme. They were gray with this weird yellowish cream that made me think of aged white, and not in a good way. Unfortunately, I don’t have a ‘before’ picture, but they just didn’t go with my décor, and I knew I would want to refinish them, somehow. They sat patiently, waiting for their makeover.
I finally made time to refinish them a few weeks ago. I went to YouTube and searched distressing techniques. Once I educated myself on distressing, I gathered supplies. I grabbed some small(ish) grit sandpaper, some gray paint, and some white paint. We have a bunch of sample-sized and quart-sized paint that was left here ‘for us’ when we moved in, and we’ve acquired a few more since the Coronavirus pandemic launched a repainting effort of the entire house. I try to shake them every now and then and use them for my projects.
I took a few moments at the beginning to consider the result I wanted. I knew I wanted a distressed finish that could work with many color schemes, and I love the clean and bright look that white brings. With a basic paint brush, I painted them entirely gray to cover up the yellow. It showed brush strokes which bothered me a little but I hoped they would blend with the distressed look when all was said and done. Once the paint dried, I painted white over the gray. After that dried, I played around with distressing them with the sandpaper. I started by rubbing very lightly on the bottom, playing around with the effect when I rubbed different ways. I found a brown layer buried in there, but it was a thin layer, so it was easy to rub through and erase. I worked on one for a while, varying my strength of distressing to leave some gray and some brown beneath the white. Once I had the first one the way I wanted, I tried to get the same effect on the other. Once they were acceptably similar, I put them out on my shelves (see Round 1 pictures).
After having them on display for a short time I realized I wanted a more distressed look and more brown showing. But I didn’t want to start all over. I needed a second round of distressing. I worked on one side again for a while, with a very soft hand to try not to go through the brown as much, then did the other (see Round 2 pictures). In an ‘aha’ moment I decided only to further distress one side of each piece. I’m SO happy I did. Now I have options to display the look I want-more or less distressed. There are a few places I rubbed further than I wanted. If I could do it again, I would paint several coats of brown first, then gray to provide a thicker palate with which to work. From several feet away you don’t notice that detail though, so it’s all good. Although my ‘good enough’ and ‘perfectionist’ sides are fighting, my ‘good enough’ side is winning, and I haven’t modified them again. I love the result! I love the way they look on the white shelves. I love that they can fit with almost any color scheme. I love that I made them! Thank you for coming on this journey with me. I would love to hear your experiences refinishing and/or distressing objects, so post your comments!
