How Not to Stain Wood

Let's have a little chat about my new table and chairs.

Sometimes a project doesn't go your way. No matter how many times you read the instructions, or stand there in the stain aisle debating between two very similar shades of brown, or the hours you put into sanding those stupid chairs... Sometimes things just go bonkers.

If you follow me on Instagram, you might remember this group of furniture I scored at the antique mall for crazy cheap.

The plan was to paint over the table and then re-stain the chairs a darker color. I had never worked with stain before, but how much trouble could it be? It was probably just like paint! I would be fine.

So I started to sand them down, and I knew I had to get all of the old finish off or the new stain wouldn't absorb into the wood. It probably took me an hour to do each one, since those spindles and stretchers were kind of a hassle. Then it was time to get all of the sawdust off, and for this I sprayed them down with the hose. You want your surface to be nice and smooth, and you should be able to run your hand across the wood and have it come back clean. That goes for any kind of painting or staining.

Anyway, after the chairs dried overnight, it was stain o'clock. I really don't know what happened because I brushed it on, let it sit for a minute, and then wiped off the excess. Exactly what the label said. And yet the seat absorbed it like a sponge and I was left with a the chair equivalent of barf:

Look at the seat and then look at the spindles. This will shock you, but that charred, tiger-stripey color isn't what I was going for. The spindles were closer, so I guess that's something, but I really don't know what happened with the seat! At this point I thought maybe that chair was just weird and I could cover that business with a cushion or something, so I tried a second one.

Same thing. Sigh.

So now I had two ruined chairs and two that were obviously not going down that path. I moped around for a couple of hours feeling like an idiot for wasting all of that time, until I remembered: I could spray paint them!

Should've used you in the first place, friend. You saved the day.

On the bright side, the table turned out really well from the get-go. I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint for the first time and I think the color (Napoleonic Blue) is gorgeous. For those unfamiliar, chalk paint works a little differently than regular paint. You don't have to sand the surface beforehand, but you do have to apply a wax coating after the paint is dry. The idea is that it's supposed to be easier and faster, but I'm not convinced. To me, it felt like the same amount of time, but I can't complain too much because the table is so pretty.

The set ended up in the basement instead of the kitchen because we really do need more seating down there. Sometimes I sit there in the morning with my coffee. (Or sometimes I stage a shot for you and it looks really tidy.) The other two chairs are in a nook on the other side of the room.

This was kind of long, but to sum it up: I still don't know how to stain anything. And I don't think I'll be trying again anytime soon. Are you a stain fan? Or are you Team Spray Paint with me? Any idea what I did wrong? Should I have used a rag instead of a brush, even though the label specifically said otherwise?