Dark Walnut and Aubusson Blue Bench (Part III)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We were blessed to spend it with both sides of the family this year. Two delicious turkeys in one day;)

If you've been following the blog you know I've been updating the benches in my home over the past couple of weeks. Here's the church pew I refinished in ASCP Graphite...

Part I: Graphite Church Pew

and this is the ASCP Country Grey bench and chevron seat cushion I made.

Part II: Country Grey Bench & Chevron Cushion

Today I'm going to show you my third and final bench project. I paid $20 for this six foot bench at a local garage sale. It's been hanging out in my basement for the past couple of years patiently waiting to be refinished.

This might be a good time to talk about the term 'refinish'. I use it pretty loosely on this blog. Technically I should probably reserve it for occasions such as this when I actually strip, stain, and urethane a piece of furniture. Refinishing furniture is a multi-step process that's much more labor intensive than 'just' painting something. I suppose I'm comfortable branding my painted pieces as 'refinished' because of the waxing process involved with chalk paint. The Annie Sloan line offers amazing colors but it's really the wax that gives my pieces a special finish. Special enough to use the term refinished. (That and I usually just do what I want. You should try it <if you're over 40>. It's incredibly freeing.) 

For this project I used Zinsser Fast Strip to remove the first few layers of latex paint,

then sanded down the remaining paint, stain, and varnish with my electric sander.
(Late November + sanding outdoors for over an hour = BRRRRR!!!)

I wanted the piece to have a layered look

so I purposely left a tiny bit of the old white paint on the top and sides.

For a little more character I added just a smidgen of ASCP Aubusson Blue
and gave it two coats of Dark Walnut stain. The real magic happened
AFTER
I applied a couple coats of Minwax Helmsman Spar Urethane.

WHALLAH...

Well, what'cha think?

 Should I love it or list it?

I'm going to...

love it.

 

The semi-gloss finish is absolutely gorgeous over the rich Dark Walnut stain.



 The flecks of color make it so unique...like a piece of artwork.

My husband doesn't know it yet, but we're going to take the bench to the cabin 

and set it behind the couch 

(until I can talk him into making a sofa table...shhh!) 

The dark patina of the bench will offer a beautiful contrast 

to the pine walls and ceilings.

As always thanks for reading 13CCF. 

Be sure to join me next week to see the chest of drawers I refinished
to go with this bench!

~Wendy