Sometimes you come across a piece that just speaks to you. I found this chair at a Goodwill in Central Oregon. I think it was $5 or so. It sat in the shop for months before I had an opportunity to tackle it. This happens to me a lot. I want the piece, I get the piece, I sit on the piece (sometimes for months....).
In this business I have found myself needing to be very opportunistic; meaning that I need to get what I can use when I can get it even if I don’t know what I’m going to use it for yet. I recall an instance when I found this adorable waterfall vanity at a Goodwill in Portland for $10! I talked myself out of purchasing it because I wasn’t sure I had room to get it home in my car. Well, here’s the deal. I could have made room to get it in and I often think about that vanity and scold myself for not having taken advantage of that deal.
With that lesson in mind, I scooped this chair up and I want to share its transformation with you. Single chairs like this one are popular as accent chairs and they sell quickly in my booth.
Materials Needed:
- Dixie Belle White Lightning and Cleaning Rags
- Sanding Block
- 100-Grit Sand Paper
- Dixie Belle Buttercream
- Dixie Belle Round-Small Brush
Step One: Clean and Prep the Chair
The first order of business with this chair was to give it a good cleaning. I used Dixie Belle White Lightning and a few paper towels to get the dirt and grease off the chair. With Dixie Belle Paint there is hardly any prep required, but you do need to make sure that your piece is clean. If there are repairs to make to a piece they should be done before your start painting. That’ll save ya from having to be careful with your new paint later. This chair thankfully had no repairs to make so I was able to clean and get to painting – my favorite part!
Step Two: Slap on the Paint
This chair was stained dark brown which is perfect to distress back to. Keeping in mind that I was going to distress back to this color, I applied two coats of Dixie Belle Buttercream with my Dixie Bell Round-Small Brush. This brush is perfect for painting spindles like the ones on the back of this chair. The brush is small enough to comfortably get between the spindles, but the bristles are long enough to get around the round spindles for good coverage. Make sure the first coat is dry before you apply the second coat. One of the joys of Dixie Belle Paint is that it doesn’t take this paint very long to dry.
Step Three: Distress Back to the Dark Finish
This is the step where all the magic happens! Using your 220-grit sandpaper and a sanding block, lightly sand the edges and the areas that would normally see wear over time. Remember to get the back of the chair as well where many years of hands would have touched it. This particular chair had great carved detail on the chair back and I definitely wanted to highlight that detail, so I spent a little extra time with my sand paper on that area.
Step Four: Wipe down and Enjoy!
This chair is a perfect little accent piece to any farmhouse home, so I didn’t take the time to seal it. The beauty of Dixie Belle Paints is that they cure in about three weeks so there is no need to add a top coat or a sealer unless you 1) want to for aesthetics or 2) you think a piece will get hard use and need the extra protection. I happened to love this chair just as it was, and I knew it was going to be used for décor only, so I chose not to seal it.
I hope this post has inspired you to give your furniture aspirations a shot. It really can be this easy. So, get out there and find your next project or look around your house. We all have a few pieces that could use a little freshening up and Dixie Belle Paint has a HUGE selection of colors and finishes to choose from so you can get that look you have been loving on Pinterest. You got this girl!
