My friend Holly was moving into a new place recently and texted me a photo of an armoire that she no longer planned on using...and asked if I wanted it.
So now the unwanted furniture is coming to me instead of me hunting it down.
Kern and I picked it up and I got to work on it right away, only to discover that it was a little more challenging that I originally thought.
A former owner (before Holly) had used some sort of contact paper or thick wallpaper to cover the top, front doors and the sides. The paper was pretty...but it was peeling off in several obvious places and I knew I could not repair it. We removed the peeling paper off the top and the lower portion of the front. I repaired a few spots on the front doors, but decided not to take it off because I was too nervous that it wouldn't come off completely.
The inside contained great storage! The right side had a clothing hook installed and the left had four drawers and a cubby. Endless possibilities!
Thankfully, the paper on top peeled right off.
Since I didn't know exactly how well the paper was going to take to the paint, I decided to paint the entire outside with Annie Sloan's Pure White. Keeping it in the same color family as the original would make any little discrepancies less obvious. When I opened the can, the color reminded me of fluffy white marshmallows.
I painted the top, front and sides and then used dark wax on the wood portions which created an all-over creamy two-tone texture.
The strangest occurrence happened with the legs. There were some brown stains where (I'm guessing) something in the original wood had bled through the current coat of white paint. I painted the legs three times and the stain kept showing through! Instead of letting it ruin the piece, I just worked that into my overall scheme--and used the dark wax all over the wood portions.
Once the paper was painted with a fresh coat of Pure White, it looked clean and new.
I did a little test spot on the paper to see how it would react to dark wax and I did not like the result. I removed the wax and painted over the test spot.
I painted the inside Annie Sloan's Duck Egg Blue--one of my favorite shades!
Despite the challenges and uncertainties of painting over the paper, Chalk Paint triumphed once again in refreshing this piece and bringing new life to an unwanted piece of furniture.
For more tips and tricks on using Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint and wax, including helpful tutorial videos, please visit the Ask for Roses CREATE page here!
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