{Mis}Adventures in Painting the Pew…and Its Reveal!

This painted and distressed old wooden church pew was a diy project that was a lesson in trial and error. With this humorous tale of real life diy, learn what works and what doesn’t.

I debated and debated over whether or not to write about all my mishaps with painting my church pew. I toyed with the idea of just whipping up a “before” and “after” picture and making it sound so “quick and simple”… But, in the spirit of

• A. Learning from mistakes
• B. Learning to laugh at myself for making such silly mistakes, and
• C. Hoping to help someone from making the same mistakes…

I decided to document the sad but true details. You, see, I was scared to start this project. I really liked my old church pew. I didn’t want to “mess it up”…

How to Paint a Church Pew

{Enter The Pew: pre-makeover}

I started by sanding the livin’ daylights out of the thing with my random orbital sander.

It was a sort of therapeutic process that took…ummm…hours!

{The Pew: post-sanding}

Step 2: Try out a new painting technique called “whitewashing”

After much research, I thought this look might look nice. To achieve the whitewashed look, I watered down latex paint until it was the consistency of water and brushed it on. The concept is that the paint will soak into the wood and still allow the wood grain to show through.

I thought it would be jaw-dropping beautiful.

{The Pew: post-white washing}

Oh, Myrtle. It was jaw-dropping, all right… In the uggh-ly way.

“Hmm,” my husband stated carefully, “I think I liked it better at the sanded state.”

That was an understatement!

Proceed with Plan B.

I flipped that puppy this way and that, until I’d painted it with 3 (thin) coats of my semi-gloss Benjamin Moore mistint paint.

Ahh…it started to look better…

Once all the coats are fully dry, distress the finish with sandpaper.

Then I took my hand-sander to it and did a little “distressing” work {I forgot to take pictures of that step. It’s my favorite part!}.

To finish things off, I decided to try some of that fancy shmancy furniture wax that ya’ all in blog land are raving about. However, I don’t have any “Annie Sloan chalk paint” nearby, nor do I have any of the accompanying waxes that are reported to be just the bee’s knees.

Instead, I have my little can of Minwax dark furniture paste wax that I found at my little local island hardware store.

I “wiped on and wiped off”.

It did. Absolutely….wait for it… Nothing!!!

“Whaaaat?”

So, I came up to the computer and started reading some more.

Oh. I’m supposed to wait 10 minutes before wiping off. So I did that. I applied it to the areas that I wanted it to look “distressed” ~ on the edges, sides… It definitely took the “edge” off the white and made it a little more “aged looking”… but…it was appearing sort of “streaky”! I was going for a little “distressing”… Hmmm…

I wasn’t sure if it was “right”.

At that point…I was distressed – not to mention a little high from all those fumes!

So…I went to the beach…

***

Upon further research, (seriously, it was taking forever!) I discovered I was supposed to apply clear wax under the dark wax.

Uggh.

***

So, out of shear, “I don’t know what to do now”, I walked away from it all ~ for a few days. Every now and then I’d go stare at it.

Last night I had a conversation with my sister about it.

“Well, is it going to drive you nuts until you fix it?”, she asked.

When I gave her the answer, I had my “ah-ha” moment.

You see, I actually like it! I was driving myself crazy because I’m not sure if it’s “right”!

Silly me. I think the point is…

If you like it. It’s done!!!

Hallelujah!

So, after much ado, I present to you…

…The Pew~ After!

If your eye caught the painted flour sack pillows, you can get the details on them here.

P.S. And if any of you have any tips for me regarding that furniture paste wax, I’m all ears!!