Experimenting with wood bleach...

All righty roo, I just know you're all desperate to know how the wood bleach is working out. What do you mean, you're not? You're reading the wrong blog then. Because this is what I have discovered thus far!

I bought a 2 part wood bleach as apparently this is best for taking the natural colour out of the wood. There are other products that are more suitable for removing wood dye or water staining.

Here's what I'm using:

 Because my table is old and has been well used, I have had to thoroughly remove any wax from the surface by scrubbing it with fine wire wool and white spirit. And then I had a little panic and did it all over again. Just to make sure.

The problem I have is that there are some grease marks which have not lifted out. They have penetrated into the pine.

Can you see them?

I wanted to see how the bleach would work on these areas, so on the table leg where I removed the wax, I smeared a fingertip dipped in olive oil. 

Then I applied part A of the bleach.

(This leg will be painted over so it's perfect to experiment on.)

Bleach part A is on the darker areas of the picture. I left the middle dry for a colour comparison. At this point the bleach treated bits look darker because they're wet. I didn't apply it as liberally as I might on a flat table top as it was running. I let that sit for 10 mins. It said 10-20 mins but I'm impatient.

I did the second coat with part B and saw an almost immediate lightening. You're supposed to leave it for 2 hours. After one and a half hours I wanted to go to bed and the wood didn't seem to have lightened any further so I cleaned it off with a cloth and water.

Here's the result when it dried:

As you can see, the oil spot hasn't bleached. Hmm....
There is a difference in the bleached areas. It's not as big as I was hoping for. This could be because I didn't apply as liberally as the instructions suggested. Also the picture is not great as it was taken at night.

The picture below might be better to show the lightened areas. 

This picture might be just as bad actually.

So what to do about those grease spots? After 5 mins of net surfing I read that lighter fluid can get them out. Tracking that down was a bit tricky.
And really, I think I may have killed a few brain cells, even though the window was open wide, but I can't see much difference after using that. If any.

So I'm embracing imperfection and going ahead with the wood bleach anyway. Apparently you can even do it twice if it's not light enough the first time around.

So stay tuned for the next gripping instalment of 'adventures with wood bleach' and I should have a pale scrubbed pine table top to share with you next time.

If you think I'm being a bit half arsed and slow about this, let me tell you I am not! The white spirit needs a couple of days to disappear before you can apply the bleach. And the quest for lighter fluid delayed me further.

Plus I have been living with a great fear that the TV people will phone and say, ''Can we pop round tomorrow?'' so I have been painting the hallway furiously to remove all tiny hand prints and  even painting skirting boards! Because telly folk care about these things. Probably.

 Linking with Funky Junks Party Junk

Table trauma...

Remember I showed you my dining table?

With it's lovely aged patina? Well, I waxed it and it looked a bit orange. I hated it. So I wet some wire wool with white spirit and scrubbed the wax off. It turns out that lovely aged patina was mostly dirt. (Eew!) It all scrubbed away leaving a rather unsplendid looking newish pine table.

Oops.

 

I've killed it.
It dried paler but it still looks orange to me.

Table leg before

Table leg after

What I'd like is a Scandinavian looking pale scrubbed pine table top. Like this:

(This is rougher than my table)

I could do this in several ways.
Firstly with a paint wash to add paleness with the wood grain still showing through. I did this on my last table. Second, I could use a white wood dye which would penetrate the wood further than paint sitting on the top. And third, I could use a wood bleach to actually take the natural colour out of the wood. And this third method is what I'm leaning towards. I like the idea of taking out the colour rather than adding whiteness. More honest.

I have never used wood bleach before. To get the best result apparently I need a two part wood bleach which can be tricky to use and the surface is large so it's going to be hard to get an even coverage.

I was hoping this table would be our 'forever' table. If this goes wrong, it will just be another one of the many tables that come and go from this house. Boo hoo.

Today was my 43rd birthday. It's been a perfect day incorporating a boot sale and a bit of table scrubbing. What more could I ask for?

The greatest gift I ever received was exactly seven years ago tomorrow. A slightly late birthday present.

So the bunting is out for double celebrations.

Tonight I shall be catching up with the rest of the country by watching the first episode of the new series of Luther. Cannot wait!

Guess what I've been up to?

I'll give you a clue: I haven't been working on the dining room.


It was a little bit of this...

...a lot of this...

and some of this
...unfortunately.

And we almost had a couple of stowaways...

I've a lot of blogs to catch up with! 

Dining room...

The dining room is the next big project on the agenda.
Here's a before shot:

(when I say 'before', I have already removed the metal curtain track and put up the pole, painted the orange smoke stained ceiling white, stripped the lumpy wallpaper and smoothed over the walls, we also replaced the window and the radiator...)

See how the table is not centred in the room?  The light is in the centre.
This is because there was a door in a very stupid place. If we moved the table to the centre of the room you wouldn't be able to close the door. But we have never once closed the door in all the years we have been here. So, I've removed the door. 

The room feels so much bigger! You can see three walls now from this angle. The table is centred. There is space around the table. I've filled the hinge holes in the door frame so it's now an opening rather than a door frame.

The floor is covered in disgusting black tiles that were lurking under a dated green carpet. The wood floor is ready to be layed.

I'm going to paint the table legs and this is the colour scheme I'm leaning towards:

All three together! The table top is wonderful as it is. It's chunky, worn and warped.

I don't want anything too precious. I'm going for a rustic farmhouse look.

Speaking of not being too precious, I've been looking for a rug to go under the dining table. It'll add a bit of warmth to the room and alter the acoustics in there what with wooden floor and all wooden furniture. The flooring we have is a pale oak that is oiled, not lacquered. It shows grease marks from food that falls on it. It probably wouldn't be noticeable if we had a darker colour but it drives me mad. So another reason for needing a rug.

I like good quality and natural fibres but I didn't want to pay a fortune for a huge wool rug that will end up with bolognaise stains. So I kept my eyes peeled for a damaged rug. I saw a huge pale blue oriental rug at the flea market one day. It was £5 as it was bald in the middle. I regretted not buying it. It would have been perfect.

Some months later, I saw this one:

It's large, clean, pale, pure wool and the best quality. It has been eaten to death by moths. My husband didn't get it. He said we could spend a few hundred on a new rug. That wasn't the point. I didn't want a new rug that I would get stressed about if food fell on it or the cats scratched it. He doesn't like me stressing, so he caved and we got the rug. It was £30 so I get an expensive looking glamorous rug that is damaged and perfect to drop food on. Yay! You know it makes sense don't you?

Anyway, I spent ages steaming it to kill any remaining bugs. Then it went out in the sun for a day as that works too apparently. I haven't seen any moths yet...

The curtains will be replaced with floor skimming ones. I got some at a boot sale still in their packet for £5. The walls will probably go neutral as I'm using colour on the furniture.

The other end of the room has this pine dresser/ bookcase which will be painted:

...perhaps the same way as the table legs.

Then there's this window:

...which will go on the wall above it and that shelf will go elsewhere. I'm going to do something to it... not entirely sure what yet.

And I found a plate rack, just what I was after, with the bars so people can't knock the plates off...useful in a small room.

It's had a bad paint job (not by me) but I can rectify that. It came from eBay. (As did the dresser and the table.)

The light will be changed and I think there's something in the loft I can use. It'll be so nice to have a light centred over the table and it means it can go a bit lower. That's good as we don't have high ceilings. 

So that's the plan! Subject to change. The use of colour on the legs is scary, but I don't want everything to be white. (I think.) I'm going to try colour anyway. I can always go over it. And probably will. I'm slightly colourphobic. If that's a thing.
I've got my work cut out for me with all of this. First step: flooring. Obviously we get a man in for that as it's done in a day and perfect. I'd take six weeks and it wouldn't be perfect. Some things are worth paying extra for!

Oh and Sports Day? I'd been talking to the school, talking to Constance, not knowing what to do for the best, all totally upsetting. She didn't do the long distance as that was optional for the whole school. Which is nice. But she did fine in the race she ran. So we are not ever having that conversation again. It's not just her, there's a huge range of non athletic kids, and it's right that they all do their best. I entered the mums race and came last on purpose as a shining example of ''who cares?''
I waved and blew kisses to Constance as I ran by. Apparently if you really embarrass your children they actually beg you not to run next time.
Bring it on.

Prized vintage crate...

I've just packaged this off to my giveaway winner Loo from Jumbles and Pom Poms
She chose the text and liked the font. It's a little bit like the Coca Cola font. I lightened the wood slightly. I didn't have my usual 'Skimming Stone' so I mixed one part Wilkos 'Cosy Grey' and one part 'Coastline' and it worked fine. Very similar to 'Skimming Stone'.

The lettering is more of a contrast if the wood is slightly lighter.

After I did the wording I sanded it very lightly for an authentic 'old crate' look.

I hope she's pleased with it. It's on it's way Loo.

KRISTA W I haven't heard from you! Please email me about your prize.

I'm typing this in my dressing gown without my glasses on so it's probably full of mistakes.
Sports day today. Ugh! My daughter is running. That means I have to run too. Obviously I'll have to swing it so I come last. It won't be too hard. I gave it my all last year and came second to last!

                                                       Linking to Funky Junks Party Junk

Vintage dressing table reveal...

I was up at about 5 this morning. My punishment for allowing the cats to sleep with me. Bad Bobby walks on me and paws me until I give in. Despite being up and out nice and early, the boot sale was rubbish. This is the second week in a row!

I did find these cute wooden scissors at the Friday flea though. They are massive and about as useful as a chocolate teapot but I like them.

The only thing I don't like is the carving.

 

I don't want tribal scissors! Tribal scissors make no sense. Huge wooden scissore however make perfect sense! So I've tried a bit of wood filler to see if I can lose that look.

It's a work in progress...

I have however finished waxing the vintage dressing table that I painted in milk paint. This is a lovely shape and with the removal of the mirror it would make a gorgeous desk too.

Here's the before again...

The wood was actually in poor condition and there were some holes in the veneer.

 And the after...

I really love this chippy look. It's the Kurt Cobain of furniture. You can only get this grungey look with milk paint. It took lots and lots of coats to get an opaque coverage as dark wood and pale milk paint is a tricky combination. But I love the contrast.

I'm going to be selling this one as it's pretty large and won't fit in our home. But not until I have refurbished a matching dressing table stool to go with it. I've been lucky enough to find one that's a perfect match with those Queen Anne legs. If you're interested, get in touch and I can upholster the stool to match your decor. My husband is just thrilled at the thought of hauling it outside again for another photo shoot when the stool is done!

I'm sure it gives the neighbours something to talk about, that strange lady from number 9 who's always dragging her furniture outside to photograph it. I even tried posing with the furniture this time! But those photos didn't work. The dog walkers put me off.

Thanks for your kind comments and support after my last post. I do feel much better now, it's not such a shock and I'm going to try and be stronger for my little girl. No more tears. I'm too soft. She was sobbing in the classroom the other day as someone told tales on her and it nearly set me off! The culprits said sorry and she happily ran out to play a minute later. I need to toughen up.

She made me laugh as we were waiting for a a prescription at the chemists and she said, ''Mummy, If it's okay, I would like to keep these legs.''

Bless! I'm sure we can arrange that.

Linking to Funky Junks Party Junk and these other blogs

Odd week...

Odd week. I've been asked if I want to do some painting on telly! Very flattering and exciting! Just call me Lawrence.

Then we found out that my daughter has a hip condition that should have been diagnosed at 8 months, and if it had been it could have been dealt with non invasively. It's a bit late for that now as she's almost 7 years old. So I don't know if they will do something drastic or do nothing and just try and limit the damage and give her stability. I'm really trying not to dwell on the missed opportunity and the stupid, incompetent, idiotic health visitor who failed to pick up on this at the 8m check. But I'm failing.

It's such a shame this wasn't detected sooner. Her hypermobility has probably masked the symptoms. It's sports day next week and I just want to phone in sick to protect her self esteem. I've spoken with the school and they have been great and far more rational than me.

So I have achieved precisely nothing. Except for turning this...

  into this...

and this...

into this...

 ...yucky black tiles that will be covered up soon!

 I hope to be back with completed projects soon. Bear with me!
I'll leave you with this little marble topped table I picked up a few weeks ago for £4! I'm longing to paint it but I won't let myself until I've waxed the dressing table.

I mean marble? £4? Seriously? How could I not?

And a picture of my peony bush.

When I say, bush, it's really more of a twig. But I'm thrilled with my peony as there wasn't even one last year. Perhaps next year we'll get two.