Chalk paint and stencil makeover

Functional, good quality, but nothing exciting.  This fine little chest really needed a makeover -- something to make it stand out.

 I started by painting it with Annie Sloan chalk paint in Napoleon Blue.  But it wanted something more...

I found some cute stencils in a bird and branch motif by Martha Stewart at the craft store.  I used the stencils as the basis for a tree branch design, painted with Annie Sloan in Coco and Olive.

I also went free-style with some of the branch design.

Chalk paint provided even more interest:  Primer Red berries dotted here and there, and a little bird in mottled Provence teal and Olive, perched jauntily on the main branch.

I also used a brown Sharpie marker to give the branches the appearance of wood grain with random squiggles and swirls.

To give the piece a rich patina, I applied dark wax.  I like to thin the wax with some mineral spirits, in about a 1:1 ratio, to the consistency of a thick soup.  Then I apply the wax with a natural bristle brush...

and buff off the excess wax with a soft rag.

Before dark wax and after.  Quite a difference, don't you think?

Finally a coat of clear wax, some new hardware, and my little chest is a stunner.

Telephone Bench Makeover

The antique store wanted $40 for it:  a heavy, well-built oak telephone bench with turned legs and a small storage compartment.  It had some nice detailed carving, too.

But the finish was pretty rough and scarred, so I haggled a little, and for $35 it was mine.  That's a bit more than I like to spend on a makeover piece, but I had a good feeling about this one.

Home to my basement studio it went, and I immediately painted it all over with Annie Sloan chalk paint in Pure White.

To make the carved detail stand out, I applied a coat of Paris Grey.  Then I used a bit of Duck Egg Blue to further bring out the carved medallions within the detail.

After the paint was thoroughly dry, I thinned down a dollop of Annie Sloan Dark Wax with some mineral spirits until it was the consistency of chocolate syrup, and I applied it to the piece using a natural-bristle paintbrush.

I brushed on wax in small sections and immediately buffed it off using an old cloth diaper.  Finally I applied a thin coat of clear wax.

And here you have the finished piece in all its made-over glory:

Fun with ORB

One of my favorite bloggers is Nancy at Artsy Chicks Rule.  I follow her on Bloglovin and Pinterest because she has so many creative decorating diy ideas and instructive before-and-after posts.  Not long ago Nancy blogged about all the things in her home she has updated using "oil-rubbed bronze," a.k.a. ORB spray paint.  It was pretty impressive.  And it gave me an idea....

I decided to go to the local thrift store and pick up as many items as I could find within a $20 budget to experiment with ORB spray paint.  And just to be ornery, I tried finding test objects that would take this experiment to the very limits of hideousness.


I think I succeeded.

I used the no-mess "paint in a box" method that so many pinners recommend.  (I suppose I could have used a bigger box.)

It was easy.  I spray-painted each item (sometimes several at a time) inside the box, waited for the paint to dry, then rotated and repeated.  The paint dries quickly, so I was able to get most things completely covered within a few hours.

This was fun, and the results were surprisingly good...

Here are the "after" shots of my crazy collection.

You may have already seen what I did with the brass candle holder on a previous post.  If not, check it out.  

The scratched-up silver collage frame turned out nicely.

 And here are all the rest:

Now I get it.  People love oil-rubbed bronze spray paint for a reason:  it can make ANYTHING look good!

Well... almost anything.

Come on.