If you have wood furniture – solid wood – never ever, ever, ever get rid of it! Wood furniture can be refinished over and over and over to keep your home current and trendy without losing quality or craftsmanship.
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Need a break from all the Christmas posts of late?
Me too, so today I’m going to show off a bedroom set that I have refinished behind the scenes.
Do you remember the bedroom set makeover from about a month ago? Well, the owners were so pleased that they passed my name along to their interior decorator…
who then passed it along, and along, and along! Who knew one project for a friend would lead to so many referrals?! (Thank you so much!)
This bedroom set is one of those referrals, and I’m so glad they came to me and didn’t buy new furniture because this set is wood – and solid wood furniture isn’t easy (or inexpensive) to come by anymore.
This is a knotty pine and while the stain might not be current …
it is easy enough to change out over and over.
You can’t do that with chipboard or veneer.
This bedroom set consists of a tallboy dresser, a single nightstand and a tall bookcase. Given that these pieces are straight-lined without any ornate carvings or embellishments, a full bedroom set makeover is a breeze. Even more so because the clients decided they wanted these pieces painted and not stained. (Staining isn’t difficult, it just takes a few extra steps)
I sanded off/roughed up the varnish:
you don’t have to hit bare wood with your sanding – all you need to do is remove any shine (varnish) and leave the surface clean and dry ready for primer.
After sanding I brought out my favourite cleaner – Rust-Oleum’s Krud Kutter. Spray it on, wipe it off and then let the surface dry.
The clients chose a black paint for the bedroom furniture makeover, so I added a bit of it to my Zinsser Bullseye 1-2-3 primer to give me a tinted base. You can buy tinted primer, but I had white in-stock, so it was just easier to tint my own before applying it with a paint sprayer.
I taped off the drawer glides (instead of removing them) and covered the interior of the drawers with plastic to make the spraying process easier and faster.
I don’t like taping, but I dislike attaching drawer glides even more – so the tape won out.
I drilled a few holes in a scrap piece of wood and placed the drawer knobs (screws and all) into the hole so they could be easily sprayed as well. Just a note here; sanding drawer knobs is important, but using Krud Kutter is even MORE important. This is where the majority of the oils from people’s hands would have accumulated and not cleaning the knobs/handles thoroughly will mean that the paint will peel off – even with a primer base.
After a grand total of 11 hours work (really ~9, but I re-tinted the paint to a darker black and had to add an extra coat to everything), I give you the new and improved black bedroom set!
It’s really tough to photograph black; either I show it as truly black, but then the image is so dark you can’t see the details, or I up the exposure to show the details, but lose the true black colour.
You’ll have to just trust me that this is as close to jet black as you can get (in a white based paint.)
I wish I had the shelf pegs to put the shelves back into the bookcase and style it for you, but just imagine a white cake stand layered with pine and then piled with bright red ornaments – SPECTACULAR!
Actually, styling it with books alone will be beautiful; the bright spines and covers will really stand out against the semi-gloss black.
I might need to build myself a tall bookcase now.
After speaking with the clients, it was decided that the interior of the drawers didn’t need to be painted.
I like the peekaboo surprise you get when you open them up, and drawers are always full of clothes anyways.
How about a before and after of the black bedroom set makeover? (again, my apologies for the photo quality):
Just in time for Christmas company!
Another bedroom set makeover for the books and (hopefully) another happy client.
We now take you back to your regularly scheduled Christmas crafting.
Have a great one!
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