Barrister's Bookcase Sampler

 We really enjoy creating beautiful wood finishes.  We see beauty in golden oak, teak, mahogany, cherry, walnut, pine,  the list goes on.  But sometimes a piece of furniture just calls to us for something more original, more unique.  Generally this 'calling' is generated by some kind of damage to the wood, but sometimes the furniture just seems to want something that will set it apart from the crowd.  When this happens, we get into 'artist' mode, as we did with this Barrister's book case.

This bookcase is going in our office so we thought it would be fun to showcase some of the more interesting techniques in our arsenal.    We started out by cleaning and scuff sanding the existing old finish on the book case.  We also needed to seal the  bookcase so that none of the existing stain color would leach through.    Then, on each of the 5 pieces of the book case we used a different milk paint,  Buttermilk, Pumpkin, Barn Red,  Federal Blue and Black.

We then applied layers of dye toners over the milk paint to create the custom color we were looking for.  We applied 5 layers of Vintage Cherry dye over the Pumpkin paint.  We applied 4 layers of Dark Brown dye over the Barn Red, and 6 layers of Merlot dye over the Federal Blue.  The Blue/Merlot combination created a really deep rich purple which is fun.   You can see the progression from milk paint to final finish coat in the sampler photo.  We made sure to mask of a section after each step so that you could all see the  stages of progress.  After all these steps were completed, the bookcase had a Satin Sheen finish sprayed over top.

We didn't leave out the base and top of the bookcase,  the black paint got a blue dye treatment which gives it a really neat iridescent look.  The top has multiple layers of toners, dyes and paint splatter to create a modern 'marble-ish' look.    Overal, we are really happy with how our office 'Sampler' came out.  We hope it inspires our customers to think creatively when it comes to their furniture.  Sometimes a piece just screams 'make me interesting', and now we can answer that call.