If you think repainting or refinishing your furniture is something beyond your capability, you would be completely wrong. If I can do it… anybody can do it. When I decided to redecorate my bedroom months ago, I knew I couldn’t afford to buy new furniture, nor did I really want to. I actually loved my huge, oversized dresser that we bought when we moved into our house 14 years ago. The natural pine worked well when I had a beachy theme – browns and blues – in the room. I changed the feel and color of the entire room and went with a light gray/lavender paint that worked really well with our new distressed, dark wood floors (which we installed ourselves). The pine furniture had to go. So I decided I’d do a gray wash and lighten everything up.
So, what did I do? I took all the drawers out and lightly sanded all the wood faces down. I used a light-weight sandpaper because there wasn’t any paint on the dresser to begin with. There might have been some kind of varnish at one time, but the piece was 14 years old and was basically just natural wood at this point. I sanded everything just to make sure the surface was as clean as possible when I started painting.
I purchased a very light gray latex interior paint from a home improvement store. When I was ready to use it, I poured the paint into another container and added enough water so that the paint color was thick enough to be adhesive, but thin enough to not cover the wood completely. I tried using a foam brush, but really didn’t like the way it covered. It tended to leave bubbles and who wants bubbles on their furniture? A regular bristle brush worked great. I lightly brushed the paint wash onto the wood. Do a very light coat and go over and over it until you get the coverage you are happy with.
How long did it take me? I did the entire project in 2 days. The sanding and painting happened in one day. I then let everything dry overnight and on the second day, I added a coat of varnish to the entire dresser. The varnish wasn’t shiny and didn’t add or detract to the color. Two coats of varnish and we were good to go. The varnish sealed the paint and will prevent it from chipping or rubbing off. I ended up adding some new drawer hardware – super inexpensive from a home improvement store – and I had a fabulous antique-looking dresser. I really loved the way it turned out.
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