Furniture Makeover

We lived in a small, one-bedroom apartment for the first year and a half of marriage, and we are now in a bigger place, with more places for furniture. We had been saving furniture that had been given to us, but it was sitting in our storage unit because there was just not space, and to honest, a couple pieces just did not go with our decor.

One of them was a small, bookshelf-type piece from Ikea that looked black, but Matt swore was "espresso," which still wasn't much better. We hid this piece in our room, and had bought baskets to go inside to try to make it look more like our style. When we knew we were moving, we knew we needed a media center, but everything we liked was so expensive. We have continued to be cautious whenever buying new furniture, because we know that everything we buy, we want to be able to use for a long time in our future homes. Matt had the idea to use the Ikea bookshelf as our media center, and I was less than enthusiastic about the idea, but I obliged because I knew we were trying to save money. I did end up talking him into letting me try to paint it, and he even wanted to help. Here is the bookshelf turned media center piece before the makeover (and during Christmas-time):

The other piece that we decided to makeover at the same time was a beautiful table that was given to us by family. It really was beautiful; it had been refurbished before, however, it was just not our style. It didn't have a place in our home as-is, so it stayed hidden away in our storage unit for over a year. Here it is before the makeover:

My mom has re-done about five pieces of furniture from the bay house she and my dad bought two years ago that was furnished with furniture that "was not their style," so they made it their style. She was the one who told me about Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. Matt and I did some research about the different colors and ways to paint with this type of paint. We decided on the color "French Linen," and went to buy all the goods. Here is everything we used/you need:

Pictured above is the chalk paint that we chose, French Linen, the soft clear wax, and the soft dark wax. In order to get the antiqued look we wanted, you will need all three cans. Then, you'll need paintbrushes and small towels/rags (for the dark wax).

The BEST thing about this painting technique is that you do NOT have to strip the finish! No sanding, no stripping, nothing- it's awesome! The first step is to paint the entire piece of furniture using a paint brush with the color of chalk paint that you choose. Depending on how much texture you want on your piece, you can be either lax or more precise with your brush strokes. My motto is "the more imperfect, the better," so we painted more careless on purpose with more imperfect strokes. After painting, here is what the furniture looks like… almost good enough to leave it just painted!

But then the magic happens! It does not take long for the paint to dry, but once it does, it is time for wax. The best thing to do is work on small sections at a time. We used a paintbrush to brush the clear wax onto a small section. After that, we took a round brush to dab on the dark wax over the section where the clear wax was brushed on. You cannot mess this up. It looks really freaky that you are adding such a dark color, but once it is on there, you take a rag and just wipe it off! It leaves the section darkened a little and distressed/"antiqued" looking. Here is what it looks like after the waxes have literally been "waxed on and waxed off."

You are probably wondering why we did all of this inside… well, it was too cold to be outside. AKA- we were being divas. Sorry, not sorry. We had no spills, no worries! Once everything was dry, we were in love with how they turned out! Below are pictures of the finished products.

The small table ended up in our bathroom and is home to bathroom essentials. We have a long and narrow bathroom, so the shape of the table is perfect. I was very excited that the media center now fit our decor. It brings our living room together perfectly.