Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Painted Furniture

I don't post much. (My last post was almost 2 years ago!) I'm painting some furniture and decided to document the process and share it with anyone interested.

We bought some furniture for a guest room years ago at an antique store. It wasn't particularly great furniture, thin veneer, some damage, not really that attractive, but it was functional. I went into that room recently and realized how dark it was in there, and part of the reason is how dark the furniture is. So I decided to turn some kind of ugly furniture into something fun.

Here is what the dresser looked like before I started. The bed is similar.

So Saturday I primed it all and already it looked a lot better:





Then Sunday I started painting large areas with a pale yellow green paint. Especially areas that won't even be seen once the bed is put back together like the rails that connect the head and foot boards. And the inside of the footboard.

Yesterday I decided to add some other colors. I didn't like the pale yellow as much as I thought, so I added some apple green, some turquoise and pink. I also tried out some dark blue but don't think I like it very much. I think I will repaint the dark parts turquoise.



This is the dark blue I'm not sure about:


Today I put a second coat on the pale yellow that I've decided to keep. Then I took the side rails off so I can put the head and foot boards on saw horses and work on them on a flat surface. It's impossible to do the detail stuff properly without doing that.  So today I decided to try to figure out what color to use for the outline grooves. I had originally thought maybe white, but decided to try black just to see what would happen. It's only paint after all and I can paint over anything. And I really like the black so it will stay. Now my question is what color to paint that squiggly scrolly thing on the front of the dresser and on the head board? I'm thinking black. What do you think?  




I probably won't work on it any more until next week, since retreat is this weekend, newsletter is Monday, and I've got other stuff to do tomorrow. This is a really fun project. It might not end up to be beautiful furniture, but it will be fun, and it will look better than what I started at (which isn't saying much).