Two Mini Make-Overs

I wouldn't quite say that I re-did furniture, but I did make some tweaks to two pieces that live in the bedroom.

Mini make-over one, the lovely reading chair that looks like the fabric was custom dyed to match our room. The legs, however, were awful. They were a fake cherry red in a room full of pale birch. I was prepared to prime them and paint them but was thrilled to find that underneath the stain, they were perfect! Here's what the chair used to look like, as a reminder:

Should I just cut to the chase? Here it is after lots of elbow grease:

Now some of the mess work shots. First I sanded everything with medium grit down pretty far. I could still see some red after the saw dust turned back to natural. I was a little afraid I would sand so hard that I would corrupt the legs' shape, but this was a very hard wood, so I didn't do any damage. After I used medium sand paper, I switched to something finer to make everything nice and smooth.

Red saw dust from the cherry stain. It ended up everywhere, including in my nose. Probably should have worn a mask...

Then I learned that even "crystal clear" polyurethane (I used water-based "poly-acrylic" which isn't supposed to "amber" the wood) darken the wood. This is a little exaggerated from the flash, but you can see how the leg on the right is much darker.  At first I was disappointed, but in the end, it still matches well. It basically made the wood look the same as when it was wet. I put on 3 coats, using a fine sandpaper between layers. (You can see that all I did to protect the chair was to shove some cellophane on where the leg meets the frame. I probably should have done more but I was very slow and careful while applying the polyacrylic.)

Mini make-over two, a cedar trunk that the previous owner had already painted blue (and that an amazingly nice friend drove over an hour to pick up for me). Even though the blue matched our room perfectly, it was flat and boring. So I decided to mess it up. Fortunately the seller included the can of paint with the chest, so I figured that if I messed up too badly, I could repaint it again.

It started out as boring matte blue.

I spent some time distressing it with sand paper, trying to make it look worn in at the corners and near the lock. I was too chicken to try anything more "distressing" than that (to the chest and also to myself, emotionally). Then I lightly coated it with a tinted stain, Minwax satin stain tinted to slate. It went on a lot more opaquely than I imagined, so next time, I will choose a gray that is a little lighter. I used one rag dipped in stain followed immediately by a clean one to wipe off the excess. I worked with the grain of the wood but got tripped up on the lid, where I followed the direction of the paint brush strokes along the shorter dimension. I think if I had to do it again, I would have followed the long edge. Either way though, I think it looks much more interesting now:

Here's a close-up of the corner, so you can see the texture:

Once it was done, I immediately filled it with warm, cozy sweaters in preparation for winter. Can't wait for the cold weather so I can have an excuse to use them. At least the cats gained another surface to lay on. Now that it is in the bedroom, they like to lounge on it.