Painting the dining room table Post 2

Okay, so I started painting the dining room chairs today.  That voice inside my head kept telling me that I should wait until after our New Year’s Eve bash, but I just hummed over it and got out the sandpaper.

I couldn’t find my 120 grit that was recommended (how many places can I stash sandpaper in this house, anyway?) so I ended up sanding off the sheen that managed to survive the last 17 years with 150 grit.

Left is sanded; right is an unsanded comparison.

I didn’t work too hard at knocking down the sheen–at the most it took 20 minutes.  But I’m not kidding that a lot of this is worn off already.  Remember this pic?

See why this is a necessary project?!

Then I got out the recommended foam brush, stir stick, and drop cloth and went to town with the General Finishes milk paint in Lamp Post black (or Lamp black? can’t remember what the exact name was right now).

Left chair has one coat and right has two.

The directions say to sand between coats with 320 grit after two hours in ideal conditions.  I waited the two hours in our 68 degree house with low winter humidity and very lightly sanded before the second coat.  For the most part, the second coat finished up the chair.  I did have to touch up some areas with a light third coat to completely cover with the black.  I really like this paint.

To distress or not to distress…deciding is distressing…

Glazed with General Finishes Red Sienna glaze.

I would have said that I was positive I’d go with the distressed and glazed look before I actually attempted it.  I’ll decide for sure once I’ve got some natural light tomorrow, but I’m leaning heavily toward just black with some satin sealer coat on top.

I got three chairs sanded, painted with two coats, and one distressed and glazed as well.  I didn’t start until around 2:00 and I cooked dinner in there–so I probably spent roughly 5 hours on it today.  That includes a lot of hemhawing about the distressing, taking pictures, and standing and admiring what I had done.  I do that a lot during my projects–is that weird?

They look so much better!