This vintage wooden rocking chair used to be dark and dreary but now is light and airy. Perfect for a sweet little girl.
The customer brought this vintage rocking chair to have it made over in fresh white for a little soon to be born granddaughter as a Christmas gift.
Like most vintage pieces there was lots of wear and tear on the chair. It also looked like it had been stained after years of service in a dark stain with thick shellac finish.
NOTE to all painters/customers: A solid white coat will enhance any imperfections in the wood.
All the dings, bangs, and wear will be emphasized with no distressing or aging finishes like dark wax to embrace the "character" of the wood.
If a flawless finish was the goal, this chair would require hours of sanding after stripping the old finish to erase all the wear and tear. Chairs especially ones with detailed spindles take lots of time to hand paint as well so be prepared when you choose this finish on vintage wood spindle chairs.
First important step is to deep clean the project. I like to use Dixie
Belle white lightning cleaner mixed in a bucket of warm water with a scrub brush wearing rubber gloves to get EVERY surface clean. Then rinse well with clean water, wipe with a towel and allow to dry fully.
To smooth the sharp edges and larger dings, the chair was sanded with a medium grit RAD pad by
SurfPrep. The sanding dust wipes easily with a damp cloth now that it has been cleaned.
Using my handy carbide
scraper from Richard tools I removed many of the shellac drips on the underside of the chair as they will show once painted. Of course there are always a few that get missed until the white paint reveals them.
The underside of the chair showed various patches of stains, paint and shellac so I sanded it down with an orbital power sander as it will not be painted.
It is my preference not to paint the underside of a chair that is to have a solid finish but rather enhance the solid wood in a natural look. (more steps to follow later)
This is coat number 1 on.
The customer requested the front edge be sanded rounder and while I had it outside power sanding, the seat was also power sanded as the marks and dings really showed up with the white BOSS.
A screw had been added thru the seat into the frame over its lifetime so I I filled it with Dixie Belle mud and power sanded even more to try and lessen the seat marks.
which was followed by a second coat to all and left to dry at least 24 hours.
Here is the chair underside after all the power sanding a few days back.
Fluff; a warm yet soft white from the original Dixie Belle Paint line was chosen for the body color. You can see the difference compared to bright white on the far right spindle. It was hand brushed on using a flat medium Dixie
Belle synthetic brush. This size brush works well for spindles, narrow edges and the flat surfaces too.
The entire rocker has a soft warm white update but lets add some pizzazz.
The stencil was cleaned and repositioned to match on each side of the first one covering the entire headrest.
It is so pretty and delicate but adds allot of charm to the chair.
The fluff color was also intentionally not brushed into all crevices and character marks. This subtle tone on tone of the paint job and stencil add some dimension to the solid paint finish.
Reminder once you paint a piece areas that were dinged will show and it seems I missed this banged up spindle.
It drove me crazy so I wood filled it and when dry sanded to the shape and repeated the steps above. Much better!
UPDATE: When the customer picked up the chair she brought along a sweet little pillow she ordered and a pink crocheted afghan that will both go with the rocker as part of the gift. It is adorable for sure!
Links to the Dixie Belle products are for your convenience. My affiliation with this company does not increase prices on your end, your purchases via my links do however provide a small subsidy which allows me to keep providing these free tutorials. Thank you!
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Wonderful rocking chair makeover! I'm featuring you this week at the Home Matters Party. Your post will be shared on my social media next week. Hope you'll follow along! Southern Sunflowers .com
ReplyDeleteThank you Allyson, I shall find you on social :)
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