Painting Fabric - Settee Makeover

Unfortunately, like most of my projects, this was done before I knew Hometalk existed so I have very minimal pics!

Painting fabric can be very intimidating. I watched tons of YouTube videos first and had to go back a few times throughout to make sure I was doing it right.

I painted the wood part of the settee first and I would not recommend this. When painting the fabric, the paint gets all over because it's so thin so once the fabric was done I had to go back and touch up the white.

First step is to spray the fabric really well with water. The goal is to dye the fabric with paint so without this step, the fabric could be crunchy.

Once I gave it a good spray down, I mixed caulk paint with water till it was very thin. I didn't use any kind of specific measurement, I just kept adding water and stirring really well until I thought it was thin enough. Basically it looked like colored water. Make sure to cover whatever area you are doing this in, paint goes everywhere!

I used one of my cheaper brushes as I knew I was going to be using it on the fabric in a circular motion so I didn't want to ruin a good one.

I just basically started to paint the fabric, really laying it and working it into the fabric.

You will use a lot of paint. At least I did. I had to keep mixing batches as I found I quickly ran out but I was only using a small container since it was my first time and I had no clue what I was doing!

This is after two coats.

I think the number of coats you need will depend on the paint you use and the fabric. In total I did three. Other videos I watched, some had to do 6!

Once I was happy with the look, I grabbed an old cotton rag and applied clear wax in a circular motion as well, buffing it really well after and working the wax in.

I'm very happy with the result. It feels like leather and looks great! I didn't keep the big back cushion it came with, instead I plan to use different pillows so I can change the look of it with the seasons.

For the wood base, I used white chalk paint and waxed it as well once it dried. It took two coats of paint as I wanted full coverage and wasn't planning on distressing it.