My mother gave Zoey an amazing gift. It's a child sized table and chairs. That's pretty cool in itself, but what I love about it is that it was my mother's table and chairs! My grandfather, who I never got to meet, bought it for my mom in 1948 when she was a little girl. It was hand crafted in their small town by a toymaker, who happened to be blind. My mother loved that little table, and when she married my daddy, she brought it to the marriage. My siblings all played with it, and it lived in my bedroom for many years when I was a little girl. I bet this table has hosted more tea parties than the Queen of England. My nieces and nephews played with it, too, and it went into storage when they all grew up.
There's 17 and 19 years between Zoey and her next-youngest cousins on my side (my siblings' grandchildren-my grand nieces and nephews-are closer to her age). My mother retrieved the table last fall from my sister's garage and gave it to Zoey for Christmas this year.
The table has seen better days. It's still rugged, but the paint and finish were pretty worn. 3 generations of children, years of storage, and proximity to a house fire will do that. Heck, I hope I'm in such good shape when I'm in my sixties! My mom agreed a fresh coat of paint was in order.
Because it's a vintage piece, I decided to try using "chalk paint" for the first time. Chalk paint dries quickly, and you finish it by waxing it. It's supposed to have a softer finish, is durable, and best of all, you don't have to sand or prime first. I was sold! I followed a DIY recipe from Lowes with a quart of mistinted Dutch Boy paint I'd found at a local hardware store. The paint is a purply-blue, like a hydrangea. The recipe called for 1/3 cup of plaster of paris, 1/3 cup water, and 1 cup paint.
The paint covered well, but I learned a few things the hard way.
1. Use a little more water than they recommend. I found that the paint dried a bit too grainy. I think the plaster of paris didn't dissolve completely, even though I mixed like crazy.
2. It dries FAST. You can't really go back and touch up sections without roughing up the finish. Let it dry completely before you go back.
3. It's great if you want to distress it by sanding. My finish was so grainy, I had to sand between coats, but since I don't want a distressed finish, I had to go back and touch up the edges (see #2).
My table took 2 coats on the legs and I did 3 on the top. The chairs got 2 coats underneath and 3 on the seat and back. I finished all the painting in under 2 hours, including mixing the paint. By the time I painted the underside of one chair and did the underside of the other, the first one was dry.
Tomorrow I will wax the finish, and Zoey and I will have a tea party. I'll post some photos tomorrow!
