Telephone Bench Makeover

The antique store wanted $40 for it:  a heavy, well-built oak telephone bench with turned legs and a small storage compartment.  It had some nice detailed carving, too.

But the finish was pretty rough and scarred, so I haggled a little, and for $35 it was mine.  That's a bit more than I like to spend on a makeover piece, but I had a good feeling about this one.

Home to my basement studio it went, and I immediately painted it all over with Annie Sloan chalk paint in Pure White.

To make the carved detail stand out, I applied a coat of Paris Grey.  Then I used a bit of Duck Egg Blue to further bring out the carved medallions within the detail.

After the paint was thoroughly dry, I thinned down a dollop of Annie Sloan Dark Wax with some mineral spirits until it was the consistency of chocolate syrup, and I applied it to the piece using a natural-bristle paintbrush.

I brushed on wax in small sections and immediately buffed it off using an old cloth diaper.  Finally I applied a thin coat of clear wax.

And here you have the finished piece in all its made-over glory:

And now it looks like this....

Experiments with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Grey and Coco

Unfortunately I have no "before" pictures of two items I bought at my favorite thrift store for under $5 each.  The clock used to be dark-stained wood with a heavy, glossy varnish and a shiny brass frame around the face.  The photo carousel had a boring, homogeneous, mid-tone teak-looking finish.  Chunky, clunky, awkward and ugly, both.  But I did like the carved grapevine detail on the front of the clock; there seemed to be some possibility there.  As for the carousel, I liked nothing whatsoever about it.  I almost left it behind, but something about its practicality grabbed me.  Under the lid is a little compartment for storing... more photos?  Who knows, but I'm a sucker for any kind of hidden storage.  So I decided to see if chalk paint could fix even this much ugliness!

For the carousel, I decided to try Annie Sloan chalk paint in Paris Grey, just one coat.  Then I distressed it heavily, and I finished it off with a coat of dark wax.  I actually like the little thing now.  I'm thinking about using it to display some flowering window box photos I shot in Germany last October.  (Who am I kidding?  It's gonna be pictures of the grandkids!)

I also tried painting the clock with the ASCP Paris Grey, but for some reason I wasn't as pleased with the result.  Next I tried giving it a light over-wash with some watered down ASCP in Coco, then lightly distressed the edges and the carvings.

Still it just didn't do it for me.  The brassy framing around the face still looked shiny and fake to me.  And the grapevine carving just didn't pop the way I wanted it to.

I tried to come up with a solution -- maybe a darker wash of Graphite over the carvings?  Try another color altogether?

And then it came to me:  THE WAX, STUPID!

 I brushed on a coat of dark wax, wiped off the excess with a clean cloth diaper and buffed the piece all over with a shoe shining brush I stole from GrandDad Fabuloso.  (He'll never miss it!)

For the record, if you get wax on glass or mirror, scrub it off without delay.  Like, right that second.  That may sound like a no-brainer, but some of us just have to learn things the hard way.

And now it looks like this: