Upfront caveat: I'm pretty useless. That's my baseline. Fortunately, I'm not taking it too seriously at this stage, since our build is many years away and I have plenty of time to develop. My approach at the moment is to learn through experience... read: learn by mistakes.
My first DIY
...matched with a beautiful fabric office chair and framed by a wall of bookcases. Roughly, this sort of styling, but with books:
A friend of a friend was offloading bookcases, so I scored two large black bookcases and a couple of smaller panel display units. Black wasn't any part of my vision and I decided to paint the new wares an off-white shade. Despite earnest efforts, the paint venture has taken months. This is what I've learned from this escapade:
- Buy a good paint brush. I used a pastry brush - yes, from the kitchen - because buying a brush hadn't occurred to me when I bought the paint. Perhaps needless to say, I made the discovery that pastry brushes shed bristles with reckless abandon. I now know that the brush matters.
- Sand before painting. I didn't. The paint peels off at the the slightest provocation.
- Cleaning up is tedious. Use a drop sheet to catch the dribbles. If you're painting again tomorrow (which was often the case), wrap the brush in plastic wrap or foil - or even sit it in water rather than wasting gallons of water trying to clean it. Oh, and turps are good for cleaning too (apparently, I still haven't got that down pat).
- Put the paint lid on tightly between paintings. Seems obvious, yet after a few pourings it became difficult to get the lid firmly back on. I learned the hard way that it pays to hammer it back on. The paint pot fell during a windy squall and off came the lid and out came the paint...
Frankly, I didn't do a great job of it. The sander instructions said to use a circular motion going with the grain. I did this, but the sander ended up scratching circles into the table. I've since been told to just sand straight along the grain. I've got a sandstone and will take the time to do it properly over the next couple of weeks.
In the meantime, I was inspired to paint my benchseat, which is on view at the back of the above photo. I gave it a brisk sand - it didn't have any finish on it, so was really just to give the stain something to grip. I scrubbed it down with sugar soap and rinsed and dried it before I started painting.
I'm feeling mighty proud of my perseverance actually. I'm pleasantly surprised how rewarding I find this kind of manual labour. Still, it's got me thinking about wood stains. When I was choosing stains, I was instinctively drawn to the darkest stain, Jarrah. I *knew* it would end up too dark though, so I went for the second darkest (out of four) colour, Cedar. It looked lovely instore, but on my benchseat, it's too dark and too red. It wasn't what I wanted. It means the benchseat no longer matches my other outdoor furniture... although I have since painted a plant box the same colour, so at least something matches out there.
I'd actually bought the stain for the table, but just haven't got to painting it yet. I'm inclined to buy a different stain because I'm drawn to something subtler. But what? This matters, because from hereon I want any furniture I buy/restore to be part of the future strawbale home. It needs to be consistently styled.
Off the cuff, I would say that I like a polished golden honey colour. When I look at straw bale pictures, though, I am attracted to an unpolished rustic--almost weathered--wooden feel. Something like these:
Off the cuff, I would say that I like a polished golden honey colour. When I look at straw bale pictures, though, I am attracted to an unpolished rustic--almost weathered--wooden feel. Something like these:
I don't have a definitive answer at the moment. It's something I'm going to meditate on.
Addendum
So, I ended up choosing a warm honey varnish to finish my study table. I've been really happy with it over the past two years.
Last year I bought two weathered oak blanket boxes. This is the colour I'm drawn to, with the caveat that I'm actually not drawn to superfluous wood in house anyway. So it's mainly about the doors, window frames, bench seats and skirting (if desirable).
