Farm House Fixer Upper style

Pre dating my husband, I never imagined a life that would involve country music, farm animals, and really much of anything to do with farming... 10 years in and some of my favorite music is country music, I learned to tolerate farm life then to become a part of it... 

Much learning still to come for me and this farm life but I have to say the one part of it I really like is the Farm House "fixer upper" style. I didn't know that was what it was called until I watched my first episode of "Fixer upper" last night{Now I must watch them all!} but it definitely is what I continue to try and refinish my house into. I finally finished these end tables that I painted MONTHS ago. They aren't perfect just like me and farm life. The imperfections bother me but then they'll grow on me and I'll love them... Funny how that works. Everything, for me, is a process. 

The Process on these peices:

Originally they were just plain brown wood and the top was a brown leather(Yes I painted the leather)

1) Sand lightly

2) Paint with my own DIY chalk paint, tops and all

3) slightly distress base

4) Step 4 is an extra step. The gray chalk paint on the leather didn't bond for some reason. I wasn't sure what to do so they sat that way for a while. {Definitely a process}

5) Resand and paint leather portion with antique white General Finishes milk paint

6) This step is a tutorial of its own... I attempted my first image transfer ever... with wax paper. That was a challenging process too. I redid the farm life one, the first was well... Not so pretty. 

7) Seeing how much imperfection there was in the transfer I asked for advice and was told that maybe a wash would be good to give it a more worn look... Which is what I wanted anyway. I didn't have anything on hand for a wash but I did have some antiquing glaze so I went with that. However, because the transfer is ink and smears with wet substances, it needed to be sealed first with a spray seal so nothing smeared to an unrecognizable degree then glazed! 

8) Decide to embrace the imperfections and put them in place in our living room! Although I may continue to glaze them a bit more down the road.

{A process I tell ya}

P.S. Farm life for us doesn't involve pigs or chickens... but we had a surprise visit from pigs on the farm this week. The kids and I thought it was a great surprise!

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