Turquoise.

Have you ever received a text like this:

"Taking my kitchen table to Goodwill, but it's yours if you want it."

Aw, she gets me.

My dear friend gave me this table,

and I knew right away it was going to be turquoise!

 

You'd think I'd know by now to take a picture before I start working. 

If only I could contain my excitement about creating, it wouldn't be such a struggle.

As you can see, it was a solid, smooooth, knotty pine. 

But I took care of that with these:

 

I admit I had a ball putting lots of dings and dents on the top, apron and legs

for a very rustic, Mexican pine look.

(That stuff sells here in the southwest.)

One of my favorite distressing techniques is worm holing with a basic sharp, ice pick type of tool.

Like this:

In nature, the wood worms had an entry point and an exit. 

You can see how I created those with the pick, and then did a clustering in the middle.

Make sure to trail off the clusters at the entry and exit points.

You with me, still?

I hope I didn't just make you sick.

But, wood worms did a little more damage than that. So, with a wire brush, I broke up the wood fibers surrounding the holes, like you see here:

 

See how the worm holes are all nice and blended?

Wait. 

Why are we recreating something

that was probably the bain of people's existence at one point?

Hm.

After that, I sanded the top down to the bare wood. 

Stripping is not an option for porous woods such as pine, but if there is a lacquer on there, stripping then sanding is a good idea. 

(The lacquer on this table was worn down to nothing.) 

The sanding smoothed out a lot of the previous distressing. 

It needed another round of distressing.

Then, I painted the base in SW Freshwater 

and rubbed through the paint with some 220.

 

The top was stained with Minwax Provincial. 

I love how all the dents and dings stain darker than the rest.

I also stained the legs with the Provincial to antique the turquoise. I just wiped it on, let it sit a minute, and wiped it off. If some areas were a little heavy, I simply sanded it once it was more dry. 

Oopsy Daisy! I just noticed that there is turquoise on the wood. Better take care of that.

 

Now all that is left is the final finish (topcoat). 

I'm using a product that is probably foreign to many, but I love it. 

Not your garden variety of wipe-on polyurethane.

I know you are just on the edges of your seats! 

I'll be back in a day to two for some Product Knowledge 101.

Edit: You can read about it here.

Linking this to my favorite parties:

Piece of Work Wednesday at Primitive and Proper