Candlestick Makeover

The last time I went garage sailing, I spotted this great set of candlesticks. I loved their curvy shape, the fact that they were solid wood, and that each candlestick was unique yet coordinated. I am not a huge fan of taper candles, but knew I could give these babies a makeover to accommodate pillar candles. They were in pretty bad shape. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but they were really dirty and had lots of yellowed stains on them, like they had been in the attic for a while or something. They look nicely weathered in the pictures, but trust me, it was dirt. ;)

I found wooden plaques at Michael's for $.79 and thought they would be perfect to use as the top platform for pillar candles. Because the plaques were raw wood, I knew they would need priming. It took 4 coats of white spray paint to get good coverage--the wood was quite thirsty. :)

I used Elmer's wood glue to adhere the plaques to the top of the candlesticks, then filled in the seam with wood filler. After I sanded the dried wood filler, I was ready to paint! Oh and let me mention that wood putty is very different than wood filler. I originally bought wood putty, but then read that it does not dry and become hard. Not quite sure what the point of that would be??? Wood filler dries fairly quickly and then can be sanded down and stained or painted. I'm probably the only newb that didn't know this! :)

After getting a coat of white paint (I used a foam brush and the leftover paint from the dining room chairs), they were looking much better! See the difference between the dirty one and the freshly painted one? I'll admit, I really wanted to distress them, but my attempt failed miserably. I'm still stewing over a way to distress them without ruining them... Ideas?

One of my favorite places to get pillar candles is the Dollar Store! Pillar candles start at $3.50 each at the big box stores, but I scored these for $1 each! Woot!

I'm loving the new look! I'll be back soon with our finished Spring fireplace display!