Thursday, October 11, 2012

Bangkok Rust Hall Tree

Last week, a very good friend asked if I would makeover a hall tree for her. She's been wanting something in her entryway, and found two hall trees on Craigslist that she liked. The first hall tree was from Ethan Allen and the seller wanted $400. The second hall tree was about 15 years old and the seller wanted $99. Needless to say, she chose the $99 one!

The previous owner had painted the hall tree a gross brown--we were calling it poop brown. And, there were lots of drips, globs and it was just a bad paint job. After more investigating, we discovered that under the brown paint was white paint. My friend wanted the perfect red color--not bright red, with alittle orange, but not too much orange--so she decided on Bangkok Rust.
We agreed that the hall tree should be distressed, and wanted black to come through, so black spray paint went on all of the edges and other random places where I would end up distressing. The spray paint was brilliant because it dried in a few minutes, and it held up great with the distressing.
After the spray paint, I did two coats of Bangkok Rust and then distressed the piece. I made the Bangkok Rust (Lowe's Valspar Satin) more like chalk paint by adding a plaster of paris and water mixture to the paint. This allowed for less prepping and easy distressing. The paint goes on looking milky/dull, which lends to the piece looking aged.

I wanted to use dark wax, so I used one coat of clear and dark wax together. The BEAST on this thing was the top grain detail. The bottom one looked awesome, but I redid the top grain panel four times! I love how the grain details turned out in the end though! Finally, I put four coats of finishing paste wax on the entire piece, and two extra coats on the seat part since it will get some extra use!
The old hardware got a oil-brushed bronze spray paint update. And then she got moved inside to the entry way. She was adorned with a straw hat and scarf pretty quickly. 
The finished product! 
If you have any questions about custom painting or refinishing a piece of furniture, please contact me!

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