A Painted Chair

In regards to furniture, I'm from the school of "if it came from a tree, let it be", meaning that I do not paint my wooden furniture. However, it seems that painted wood pieces have become very popular and I'm kind of liking how it looks so I've revised my thought. If I have wooden furniture that is not in great condition, I will consider painting it.

I had a chair from my great great (!) grandmother and the wood was not in the most attractive condition, seeing as how the chair is at least 100 years old. However, I was determined to use it somewhere in our house. So after moving it from room to room and not being quite satisfied with where it sat, I decided to freshen it up with some paint. Here is the chair before:

And after Stuart sanded it (so that the paint would adhere):

We are in the process of painting our other guest bedroom a light gray. Before choosing the paint color, we brought home several small sample containers. One of the samples was from the same paint card as the color we chose, but a shade darker. I decided to use the extra sample paint for the chair, so that the grays would work together. I painted the chair caning a high gloss white to match the molding. I coated the chair twice and after it dried, used a medium grade sandpaper to do some light distressing. Afterall, it just wouldn't fit in our house if it didn't look a little old. I really love how it turned out and will definitely be painting some more pieces!

Right now the chair holds a plant in the guest bedroom (see sneak peak of new bedroom color in background--the grays look the same in the picture because of the flash, but the chair is slightly darker than the wall color).

What do you think? To paint or not to paint the wooden furniture?