7 Furniture Stenciling Tips for Your Dixie Belle Paint Buffet Makeover

Here’s what I started with. This buffet was bought off Craigslist over a year ago and has been in storage ever since. 

The base color is Dixie Belle's Coffee Bean Chalk Mineral Paint. It’s a rich yet subtle black with dark brown espresso undertones. It’s been added to my "best black paint list" for sure; it’s right up there with Caviar.

This was my first time using a big stencil! It covers a 22″ x 24″ area so painting the design went pretty quickly. The French Trellis was painted in Cotton which is a stark clean white. They look amazing together and gave me the contrast I wanted. The top was protected with Gator Hide and the body with Easy Peasy Spray On Wax.

Here are my 7 furniture stenciling tips:

1: Stenciling a dark color over a lighter color is easier than stenciling a light color over a dark color.

2: Using a spray adhesive helps keep down all the edges and keep your lines nice and crisp.

3: Mark out the center of the stencil and the center of the furniture. Line it up for your first stencil positioning – work outwards from there.

4: Use low tack painters tape to tape the stencil in place so it doesn’t pull up any paint when moving the stencil around.

5: Lay the furniture flat on it’s back to stencil. I find this easier than stenciling while it’s upright.

6: Use a foam roller to cover more area when using a large stencil and always offload excess paint before stenciling. Two light coats is much better than 1 heavy coat to prevent bleeding.

7: Clean off your stencil before re-positioning to continue the design OR wait for everything to dry and then reposition.