I do love a great distressed piece of furniture, where the years of different paint colors peek out from every edge. But too many distressed pieces in a room can be noise to the eyes. Distressed pieces need to be artfully balanced with pieces that are well...not distressed.
As I look around my patio and deck right now, there's way too much distressing going on, some good, some needing my attention:
Good distressing= the beautiful vintage, green, patina on my back porch glider.
Bad distressing:
My swinging bench that is years overdue of a decent exterior white paint job. Think you first saw this project for Big Boy's grad party, and that was...2014? It's still waiting (but useful). Welcome to my life.
Good distressing:
Original paint job on a vintage lawn chair from the cabin, with the perfect amount of rust, all sealed and beautified with exterior poly. Please, please, please...don't ever paint over this with a new fangled can of Rustoleum; just pass it off to me or some other junk lover. We will give it the love it deserves. Go buy a reproduction if perfection is what you desire.
Bad distressing:
Our beautiful stash of high-quality, teak furniture that Mr. Fix-it got free on Craig's. It's gloriously beautiful when sanded and teaked, but when it's peeling and needing a lot of attention, it brings new appeal to modern "low maintainence" yard furniture! Of course, anything that's free...
And the worst of the bad distressing staring at me every time I pull up to my door:
The peeling deck steps to my back entrance! I have to check my humility gauge every time one of my kid's friends or their parents are doing a drop off. It's kind of like a sink overflowing with dirty dishes when you have guests over. Just. can't. stand. it.
I remember learning about stress in college psychology. Stress is a neutral. There is good stress and bad stress; Eustress and Distress. Life has a combination of both. Weddings, 1st dates? Good stress. Sickness, funerals? Bad stress. Some things in life are a combo platter of both.
But whether it's stress or distressing, a balance needs to be achieved. And that can be different for each person.
So today I'm attacking my steps with an air compresser, a sander, a screw driver for the grooves, and a wire brush. Because this is one area of my life that I will not accept being distressed.
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