Aged Green Buffet

 Last week the girls and I went up to my brother-in-law's family cottage for the week.  It was a wonderful, relaxing week, and it was so nice to get away from the daily grind.  We left poor Marko behind to go to work, and with a garage full of pieces to be sold.  He landed up selling 6 pieces, so I came home to an empty garage, a blank canvas just begging to be filled with gorgeous antique painted furniture.




So I started the week off with this gorgeous buffet I found on Kijiji.  Funny thing with Kijiji, is you never know who you're e-mailing.  It turned out this piece was from a friend of ours.  My initial offer I totally low-balled, but we settled on a happy medium, and Mark was able to pick it up the day before we left.

I had all week to dream about this piece.  I've found that I put a lot of time planning and dreaming about each piece, so that it will come out 'just right'.  I didn't have a vision for this piece, until I was reading an article in an HGTV magazine I found up at the cottage.

I took a picture of it.  This was my inspiration.
 

 
I love how the piece looks so aged.  I bought some of Annie Sloan's Dark Wax a while ago, but have never been gutsy enough to use it.  After seeing this picture, I knew I had to give it a go.

I'm beyond excited about the finish it gave.  If only you could see it in person.  It totally gave the finish a hard enamel feel, but it super smooth and shiny.  I've used wax in the past, but I discovered I haven't been using it properly.
 

The proper way to apply it, is to brush it on with a bristled brush (I used a paint brush), let it sit for 15 minutes, then buff it.  And buff it.  And buff some more.  I killed through two buffing cloths buffing this baby.  And folks it was hot this week.  So as my kids napped, I buffed up and broke a sweat.
 

I'm very happy with the result.  On kijiji we go!