What's French for jerk?

OH MY. OH DEAR.

My second French chair is being a bit of a jerk. This morning I used 120 grit sandpaper to smooth down paint in some of the thicker areas and continued to use it to distress the high points (I forgot to switch to the 60 grit sandpaper...yikes). Immediately afterwards I glazed it with Minwax dark walnut stain. Because my sanding didn't just focus on the high points and because I glazed right away, it left a ton of unattractive sanding marks all over the place. Another issue I had was with the distressing itself. The 120 grit didn't strip the areas down to the wood so I was left with the old speckled paint job peeking through. This made the chair look muddled and dirty after I glazed it. SIGH!

This picture doesn't show it clearly, but the old paint is showing through the white. The reason I distressed the chair in the first place was to feature the wood underneath. FAIL!

DOTH MY EYES DECIEVE ME?

So tonight I began repainting the chair back to it's original creamy white color. Although I wanted the chair to match my La Belle Premiere, I realized this chair looks better pure white. So I'm going to be diverting from my distressed white walnut-glazed look. YES! It's true! It's finally happening!

By the way, just a little tip on painting the cane weave on the back of the chair. Don't use your good brush. I used a cheapo bristle-y brush and it helped get the paint into the nooks and crannies. And although I won't be glazing the weave again, I would suggest for anyone else out there who tries it not to use the foam brush directly on the weave. Use the foam brush to sop up the stain but then dab the brush on a clean rag. Next, run the rag over the weave and then quickly wipe it off. I find that if you use the foam brush directly, the cane weave stains darker then the wood on the frame of the chair.


YEAH, I WAS WONDERING ABOUT THAT STUFF.

Hopefully the chair will be behaving tomorrow. By the way, I realized a few posts back that I didn't talk about any of the other items featured in the picture with La Belle Premiere. The nightstand is a tobacco cabinet and my first ever furniture project (as well as one of my first posts). The picture frame was previously mentioned in this post. I haven't found any artwork for it yet, but I'm considering framing one of the poems from the book A Garden of Girls that I purchased recently. The white birdcage was from the same estate sale where I bought my once beastly French Chair. Inside the cage is a vintage heart-shaped valentine of an acrobat on a horse one of my best friends sent me from Seattle. The little red car was made by my husband way back in the day when he was in Boy Scouts. My daughter Aine loves playing with it! Last of all, the brown leather suitcase was a garage sale find. I'll take another picture of it and post it tomorrow because it has really cool vintage airline travel stickers on it. Lately I've been wondering if the stickers are worth more than the suitcase!

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