Country Grey and City Grey meet in Florence

Hi everyone,

Is everybody in the US still in a turkey induced stupor or are you out in full force doing Black Friday shopping? Either way, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I bought this small table (or bench?) at a garage sale. It was an expensive garage sale. They had many gorgeous antiques, but they were asking as much as a store would. It was an "new" older couple, two widowed people merging households, and I was thinking, good luck with getting rid of stuff at this rate.

Nevertheless, I was able to negotiate a deal on two items. On of them was the table I showed here. The other was this:

I'm not quite sure actually if it's a table of a bench, but I loved all the detailing on it.

These are the after pictures. It sat in my family room for at least three weeks, in other words, plenty of time for me to take a before picture, but do you think I did? Noooooooooo! 

Just imagine a dark wood table. Go ahead, close your eyes and picture it. I'll wait.

And then, tada!!

When came time to paint it, I couldn't think of what to do with it, until I saw a chevron pattern somewhere, I forget where. Now, I know what you're thinking, what is she talking about, that's no chevron pattern? Well, it wasn't the chevron pattern that inspired me, but its colours: a beautiful bluey green and a putty grey. Very trendy. Florence from Annie Sloan Chalk Paint was the perfect match. However, for the putty grey, not so easy. Paris grey was too blue and Country Grey was too green. Solution? Mix them both together in equal parts. It was exactly the colour I had in mind. The blue of Paris Grey and the green of Country grey were perfect partners to Florence's bluey green.

And then came the fun part: stencilling. I found this beautiful silkscreening stencil from Martha Stewart. These are pricey, but they are beautifully detailed and make seamless patterns. The finished result does not look stencilled at all. It comes in several pieces which you can place any way you want, which allows for varied designs. I'm thinking of investing in a few more, they're that beautiful.

The woodwork is so lovely and lacey!

I did minimal distressing on it and just a touch of dark wax.

This is by far one of my favourite pieces. It's at the store now and I'm almost hoping it doesn't sell!

So, what do you think, bench or table?

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