To me there is nothing more satisfying than to get a hold of an old, unwanted piece of furniture and give it a new life! In this post I will share a few farmhouse style furniture makeovers that I’ve done over the years.
Most of the furniture you will see in this post are pieces I redid for clients. Several years ago I was in the business of repurposing for others until I became so busy I wasn’t able to enjoy working on pieces of my own that I would find. Most of the pieces I pick up here and there I end up selling at a vintage fair that is held annually about a mile from where I live.
The first piece is an oak bookcase that needed some sprucing up..
Most of the furniture I repurpose, I paint using my air sprayer. To purchase a spray gun similar to what I use, click here.
Do It Best brand paint is my go-to paint that I use on a large percent of my projects. I will use satin base most of the time, unless someone requests otherwise. For this shelf I used Do It Best’s bright white colored paint.
Sometimes I will use contact paper to add some character to a piece. With this bookshelf, I took old maps and glued them onto the backing of the shelf. I used a spray on adhesive to do this.
All these pieces that I spray paint, could also easily be brushed or rolled. I often choose to spray since I do multiple pieces at a time and it’s a lot quicker. During the Ohio winter months, I will use a brush since I paint indoors.
This shelf would look great in a child’s bedroom or in an office.
Next up is a chest of drawers that I redid for a client several years ago..
Usually the only prep work I will do when repainting furniture is cleaning it really well, using Krud Kutter.
Now and then I will sand the surface a bit, if the piece is extra shiny. For this piece, all I did was rub it down with the Krud Kutter. I gave it several coats of Do It Best paint. I should mention that the paint I use is a paint/primer in one, allowing me to skip the extra coat of primer. If I have a really old piece of furniture that has the varnish peeling off, I will prime it with a shellac based primer so no weird stains will bleed through the finish.
For this chest of drawers, I used one of my favorite colors of paint, called Spectral. It’s a nice white-gray shade. I use it a lot!
After painting and distressing the piece, I cut pieces of contact paper that I bought at Walmart to fit the drawer fronts. Last, I put the hardware back on.
I picked up this coffee table at a yard sale a few years ago. The one drawer was broken, making it worth only a few dollars.
I removed the old trim around the drawer fronts and made new trim out of thin pieces of wood. I also removed the basket weave design. I put contact paper down on the drawer fronts before adding the new trim. The table received a few coats of paint. Again, I used a satin base Do It Best paint/primer in one paint. The color I used was also Spectral.
I distressed the edges, using a fine grit sandpaper.
I know I’m probably a bit strange but I love staging furniture in my gardens! There’s something about the contrast of painted furniture with various greens and splashes of color here and there that I just love to see together! Plus, it’s not far from the shop where I paint and outdoor lighting is always the best!
The last piece featured in this post is a little hutch that I picked up at an auction for $15.
I had quite the experience bringing it home from the auction! The guy that helped me load set it upright up against the back window of my pickup truck. He did tell me I should be okay as long as I didn’t go too fast. A good portion of the piece stuck up over the top of the truck so of course on the way home when I hit about 50 and the wind blew extra hard across the open flat, the top part broke off from the bottom! I stopped to make sure nothing would fall off and rearranged some of the furniture on the back using my phone as a flash light, since it was dark. I thought I had everything in place and took off again.
I took a left turn at the light in the small town of Sugarcreek when I heard a small crash behind me. I slowed down and looked in my rear view mirror only to see a coffee table on the center of the intersection! Thankfully a kind gentleman came to my rescue and came running with the table after I pulled to the side. Definitely not one of my best moments! I like to think I’m usually really careful with matters like this so it took awhile before I told hubby about this! 🙂
The hutch was of course damaged but I was able to fix it and thankfully only one of the glass sections was broken. I’m still not sure how everything did not shatter!
Once again I removed all the hardware and used Krud Kutter to clean up the piece. I applied a few coats of paint with my sprayer. I have this habit of mixing my own paints together so I can’t really tell you what the color name is. I wanted a nice light grayish, tannish neutral color so I took a few grays and some white I had on hand and came up with this color. The inside of the hutch and the shelves were painted a pure white.
I added the contact paper on the back. As you can see by now, I use this design a lot on furniture.
I also distressed the piece and painted the hardware with a hammered silver spray paint.
Even though I had a bit of bad luck to begin with it turned out nice!
I hope this post inspired you to redo furniture instead of getting rid of something you just don’t like the color of. Paint does amazing things!
Thanks for visiting!
-Mary
Cheryl Atkinson
Hi Mary,
Why do you prefer Latex paint over chalk paint? I’m a beginner and I have watched a lot of your You tube videos. I do enjoy you and I think you have been Blessed with just so much talent to create!! I want to create but I don’t think outside of the box much.
admin
Thanks for visiting my blog! I’m sure you are able to create beautiful things too! I like chalk paint too but when I paint large amounts of furniture I go with latex since it’s cheaper and I can’t run chalk paint through my sprayer.. I really like the matte finish that chalk has and I will use it on pieces now and then..
Kendell Vinot
You can water down chalk paint (3parts paint to 1 part water) and it will go through a sprayer.
Did you replace the missing glass?
Mary
Yes, I replaced the glass..
Linda Graham
Thank you for sharing! I love watching your YouTube videos & seeing you make treasures. Definitely inspires me every time.
Terry
Hi Mary
I discovered you on You tube about a week ago!
I binge watched ever episode! I love everything you do and I ordered your book. You are really an inspiration. I started a blog on WordPress also right after Christmas. I am new at it so my blogs are a little rambling. I feel like
We have a lot in common. All the things you do including the beautiful gardens, I love. I look forward to seeing more videos and more blog posts. Thanks for your inspiration. Have a blessed Night!