Focus on furniture: Use paint to build character
Furniture is a fascinating topic. There are so many ways to study all the different designs man has concocted over the centuries for storing things, for sitting on, for eating on, for sleeping on.
The basic furniture necessities share a central role in our lives, and how better to revere them than to personalize them? We can transform a simple chest of drawers into a working piece of art in just a few hours using a few decorating materials and our imagination. For inspiration, I discovered an exciting series of cabinets on
www.wayfair.com. Wayfair’s Everest series offers magnificently detailed pieces, such as the nine-drawer cabinet shown here. The uniquely styled doors are not only stunning, but will also help you remember where you have put your things.
I have redecorated countless dressers, and I never tire of the task. Working on a plain piece of new furniture — or a secondhand find — allows me to construct a whole new look. I can change the color, the style and even the design.
If you are new to painting furniture, here are a few steps that will guarantee your project is a success.
Prepare your surface for paint. Clean and sand the surfaces to rough up the shiny base. There are now paints available that allow you to cover old painted or shiny finishes without sanding, but a little extra effort won’t be wasted.
Next, use a high-quality primer that is designed to cover shiny surfaces — again, this step can be skipped if the paint product specifies that it is not required.
Once you have a clean, smooth surface, you are ready to decorate. I have shown steps here for painting a Scandinavian-inspired dresser.
Low-tack tape, also called painter’s tape, is your best friend for masking off panels and protecting areas you don’t want to paint. To create inset panels, use 1/2-inch tape to tape off the panels on the drawers. Apply two coats of your base coat (we used olive) to the dresser (except for the taped-off portions). Let the paint dry at least four hours; overnight is best because you are going to tape over parts of the fresh paint.
Once the paint is dry, remove the tape, and retape on the outside edge of the unpainted sections. Paint the inside of the panels your desired color (we used gray). Remove the tape, and let dry the fresh paint dry.
Apply 1/4-inch tape around the inside edges of the panels on the drawers. Mix a glaze by adding some white paint to the paint you used for the inset panels, then mixing one part paint to one part glazing liquid. Use a dry brush to apply the glaze to the entire dresser. Work in one direction, holding the brush perpendicular to the surface; this produces a soft, grainy quality. Remove the tape.
Once you know how to paint framed inset panels, you can make up your own designs — you can create faux-wood inlays, use diverse patterns and mix colors. Choose wallpaper and other decorative papers to decorate the panels. Dress your furniture up with real or faux leather panels or sections of fabric (cut and paste or nail onto the frame molding to hide the edges).
For my Scandinavian dresser, I decorated around and under the knobs with a design I photocopied and adhered with craft glue. For protection, apply two coats of varnish to the paper appliques.