Beauty & The Beast " A Stained Art Sideboard Transformation"

So it begins,


A tale of Beauty & The Beast.


                         This once called the BEAST.............


Because it was a monster of a piece of furniture


It weighs Im guessing over 300lbs.....


A dear friend of mine saw it at a goodwill store and bought it for me to refinish.


She said this thing is big and ugly but I feel sure you can transform it.

     
      so I put on my thinking cap.............

Ugly it was and this is how she looked when I started stripping off the top layer of varnish.


She sat in my shop for a while while I decided what in the world to do with it.


I remembered seeing a creative blogger do some sort of stained art


.................................so I went on my search to find the picture to get some inspiration


Bingo The Inspired Room is where I had seen it.

                     I was in Awwwww

I was truly inspired, a great name for her blog.....Thank you Inspired Room!!!!



                        I am no artist, to say the least I was intimidated.


Could I do it?


Would I be able to make a beauty from this beast?


                I had to give it a try...................



determination burned within me like a runner trying to win a race



                  ..................blood, sweat and tears..............


I jumped in............ sink or swim.

After CitraStrip stripper worked it's magic this is what the top looked like

A beautiful piece of hardwood unveiled ..................


The whole piece is wood that is why it is so heavy

Since I am no artist, I began the transformation of the top by printing out a petal design with my cameo silhouette.

Then it took hours to draw out each petal of different sizes into the perfect place.

Excuse the ucky phone pics

I was too focused to run back to the house to get my real camera so I would shoot and move on

This was challenging to say the least, however I was determined so I push on with the staining

Sisters, I had absolutely NO CLUE what I was doing

But.............  I had a vision

So I started with dark stain and in the center of each petal and let it sit for a few mins

                                      .................OK, OK maybe seconds

and tried my best to make a gradient transformation from darker to light

                                  

I was so excited to watch each petal grow into a beautiful flower covering the top of the beast

                    Each day she transformed into this beautiful masterpiece.


After I completed all the gradient petal staining I went back with an artist brush with darker stain and a soft cloth

                     
                                 

                        Yeah I know Im no artist but I had to try,  I had a vision remember


I would dip the brush in some stain and draw some lines and then diffuse it with my cloth


I was in love with the look.


Once all the petals were as good as it was gonna get,


            I lightly stained over the rest of the top and added a low sheen poly to protect her petal glory


The top was finished.......

And boy did that take a long time

...........cuz I am picky, picky picky

I can say it was not perfect, it was a learning curve

the more petals I did the better they looked ..........I felt a little sorry for the first ones I did ...snicker

However that is the beauty of life nothing is perfect so I accepted her imperfectly beautiful imperfections and moved on.

Next up was the body of the beast now transforming into a beauty

She was boring and plain and heavy.....what to do

I painted it with a creamy off white and lightly layer a color wash over it called cappuccino 

Her doors were boring and plain so I went to hobby lobby and picked up some oh so cute

cast iron door pulls and added them for easy access.

                         
               Along with some molding from Lowe's to trim out the fronts of the doors for a designer look

Lastly I had to add feet to this piece and get her up off the floor.

So another trip to Lowes for some pretty bun feet and she is a PRIZE

   

so beast here

To Beauty 

So do tell me what you think?


Have you tried your hand at stained art?  if so Im dying to hear from you and see pics



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You're the best and thanks for visiting............


parting at

My 1929 Charmer

Transforming Life,