Chipping Paint, Missing Detail and Perfectly Imperfect
4 Materials
My neighbor and friend is in the process of updating her daughter's room from little girl to tween. She asked me to give new life to this very sweet armoire. It is old, and aged, and absolutely “perfectly imperfect”. I wanted to celebrate its age and charm and give it new life while not erasing its old.
The piece was already very charming but it did have a few issues. One was a lot of chipping and flaking paint, which is hard to paint over. It also is missing parts of its original detail. However, both issues are part of its charm.
Here is a close-up of the chipping paint.
The paint was flaking off everywhere.
I wasn’t about to sand it all down to the wood and try to make it look new again. I sanded back the chipping paint and used wood filler in places in order to create a smooth finish to paint over. I used a mask and did the sanding outdoors.
The underlying finish gave the piece a lot of dimension when I layered coats of paint, as it popped through beautifully.
For this piece, I used a base coat of General Finishes chalk based paint in the color Limestone and then two coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in French Linen.
I used both touches of gold and white on the detail. I love how it is softly highlighted now. It doesn't matter that it is missing pieces, it is old and shows that it has lived a full life.
Both clear and dark wax was used.
The interior drawers were given a pop of blue. I believe the piece has maintained its vintage charm but is now smooth as silk and ready for its new life in Lily's room!
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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3 of 9 comments
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Your work is always so lovely and this piece is no exception. I'm sure it will be loved for many years to come.
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Thank you so much, Patricia!
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Pretty!
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