Now for the fun part!  Since I wanted a distressed look, I had to fake it.  I took the pad lock and repeatedly tossed it over the table top.  It made a variety of pleasing marks!  I smacked the wood here & there with the meat tenderizing mallet and zinged a few spots with the pattern wheel and finished by scratching a little with a nail.

After a couple more trips to Lowe’s and a local paint store for different shades and then copious tests of a variety of stains & combinations thereof….

…I decided to start with a mahogany gel stain.

Since it had the base I wanted, but was too red, I went over that with a couple coats of a dark walnut.

Once that was dry ~ and this was the really scary part ~ I took the sander to it in random places…

Now to add some depth & interest to the color… a couple of coats of green stain!

And here, I neglected to photograph how it looked after I toned it down & deepened the finish with yet another coat of the dark walnut before I started varnishing.  But you’ll get the idea when you see the finished surface :-)

More to come!

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