Turn Your Bed Into a Farmhouse Finished Bed!

Lynnette Soltwedel
by Lynnette Soltwedel
4 Materials
$50
5 Days
Easy
We bought this bed frame many years ago, before everyone was into farmhouse style, shabby chic, and everything chalk painted. We had given it to our middle child and his wife to use, and eventually it ended up back with us. We decided it was time for it to be brought back into style, and decided to give it a farmhouse look. Taking it from a natural wood finish to a distressed, glazed, linen white finish. Take a look at the process.
Step one: Fill any gouges with wood putty and allow to dry. Don't bother with scratches, those can be addressed when sanding. Another reason I always sand my pieces. Minor imperfections are great if you will be distressing or glazing, we will get to that a little later though.
Step two: SAND it! lol, a lot of people chalk paint so they don't HAVE to sand, but I am a firm believer in sanding first. Not sure my husband is thrilled that I have claimed his orbital sander though. I know I have said it before, you don't have to sand completely down if you are painting the piece. You can just "rough" the old finish up with sand paper. This piece had a lot of scratches that I wanted to sand out.
Third step: Base coat! I knew I wanted a very farmhouse feel to this bed. In order to accomplish that, I sprayed the bed with black spray paint after I was done sanding. So the black would show when distressed.
Step four: Paint it up! Martha Stewart Linen white! My favorite white chalk paint. It took two coats to get a nice smooth finish.
Step Five: Once the chalk paint was dry...let the distressing begin! My fingers get so tired and cramp up during this stage. I tend to take frequent breaks to let my fingers relax! I go over any edges that would show wear over time to get a nice “aged” look. Need to put that “shabby” in shabby chic. 😂
Here is an ”in progress” photo of the headboard. As you can see, there is quite a bit of detail to get distressed. I prefer to use a square of 320 grit sandpaper for this.
Step six; After distressing, a light coat of spray poly, and let the glazing begin! Here you can see the glazing process. I brush on the glaze (the valspar pictured is my favorite) and then wipe down with a damp cloth. You need to rinse the cloth out a lot, sometimes I use two so the glaze doesn’t stay on too long.
Here it is after wiping down excess glaze. Glaze is meant to enhance details. It will only slightly alter the color of the smooth areas. See how I left extra in the grooves to age the piece? Minor imperfections are great for glaze, it will settle right into those spaces to add that "shabby" feel.
This is a picture of the headboard being glazed. I always do sections to prevent glaze from drying and making it hard to get desired results. Make sure you don't wipe the areas you want the glaze to settle into with too much gusto. icon
And finally!! All done. This is suppose to be in a guest room, but alas we have an adult child staying in there right now. Once he is on his way, I can dress up the room. 😉
What a nice transformation.
Excited to paint the room and buy new bedding for this beauty.
Suggested materials:
  • Spray paint   (The home depot)
  • Marth Stewart linen white chalk paint   (Michaels)
  • Sandpaper (3M)   (The Home Depot)
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