Everyone has an old closet, a night table, a dresser, a table or any other piece of furniture that need to be freshened up, right? Yes!!! So, here I am with another Home Décor project and some suggestions about how to realize a DIY furniture makeover with acrylic paint.
Ok, I want to be really honest with you… in this specific project, the drawers were not so old, but they had such a light color that was just too neutral. Plus, I told to myself: I can’t have such neutral drawers in my painting studio… they must be colorful!!! So… said and done!!!
These are IKEA Kallax drawers, so if you want to use the same, they are extremely affordable.
I wanted to have nice and bright colors, that could however match with my studio design, so I decided to realize a rustic shabby chic look.
The acrylics I used are the Decor Chalky Finish paints. I really loooooove this line and I actually use them a lot for Home Décor, but also for my Decorative Painting designs. For example, I use them to paint the frame of a design or something else that’s containing one of my designs, as I did for the calendar of the Seasonal Notes paintings: Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer).
Chalky Finish is a creamy paint, with an extremely good coverage! In fact, with most of the colors, you just need one coat and they are perfect to achieve a shabby look because they are very easy to distress!!! 😊
Moreover, well… actually super important, the paint really “sticks” on the surface, so you don’t need to prep the surface or use a specific primer. There are many different colors, so there’s a lot of choice!
The colors I used for this project are:
- DecoArt Americana Decor Chalky Finish paint (Relic, Inheritance, Primitive, Escape, Delicate, Smitten, Timeless)
- DecoArt Americana Decor Clear Wax
- DecoArt Americana Decor Utra Matte Varnish
- sanding sponge
- paper tape
- Dynasty Blue Ice flat brush (size 2”)
For antiquing:
- linseed oil
- Windsor & Newton – Burnt Umber oil paint
- a piece of old fabric
First of all, it’s always good to cover all the areas we don’t want to paint. In this case, I used the paper tape to protect the sides and I took off the knobs. As I always say, I know this step is boring, but trust me… this will help you preventing those “accidental” brush strokes that could happen while working! 😊
Then I laid down two coats of Relic on the front side of all drawers. I had many to do, so I didn’t care too much about the drying time. However, the paint dries out quickly, in about 20 minutes… but of course, if you don’t want to wait, you can always use our dear friend blow drier!
When the paint was completely dry, I rubbed some neutral wax on the surface and on the sides of the drawers. Keep in mind that the area where you lay down the wax will be the distressed area. So, dont’ use too much wax if you want a not too aged look. If you don’t have the wax, just rub the surface with a clear candle… it works more or less the same. Then I used the other colors and painted over the first one (just one coat here: 2 drawers with Inheritance, 2 with Primitive, 2 with Escape, 2 with Delicate, 2 with Smitten and 2 with Timeless).
When dry, I distressed the color using the sanding block. Be careful because the Chalky Finish paint is easy to distress even if you didn’t use the wax, so don’t use too much wax or don’t distress to hard unless you want a pronounced effect.
Then I cleaned out my drawers from any paint dust before antiquing. Some of you may already know that I always, and I repeat… always, antique my paintings! I actually antiqued also some Decorative Painting designs I realized on fabric!!! 😊
Antiquing is something I always do because I think it gives a warm and vintage look, so I wanted also my drawers to be vintage! I took an old piece of fabric (such as a piece of an old T-shirt) and some linseed oil, then I rubbed on the surface. Then I took a tiny touch of Burnt Umber oil paint and I started rubbing from the sides.
Antiquing is very personal, so I suggest you not to take too much oil paint and to add some more afterwards if needed. However, don’t panic… everything can be fixed!!! If it gets too dark, just take a clean piece of fabric with a touch of linseed oil and rub on the area you want to get lighter.
At the end, I used the final varnish. This is something that you don’t really have to do because the linseed oil gives also some protection to the wood, but I wanted to have an extra protection for the distressed surface. I waited 24-36 hours for my drawers to dry and I laid down one coat of DecoArt Americana Décor Ultra Matte Varnish.
When dry, I took the tape off, I put on the knobs again and that’s it!!! New colorful drawers too keep all my paints in my studio!!!
I hope you enjoyed this project about DIY furniture makeover with acrylic paint and that my suggestions will be helpful. Just let me know what you think in the comments or get in touch with me if you need any help!
See you next time!!!
Marika
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