Shabby chic furniture style is a French vintage way to decorate your home. Shabby chic style gives a warm pastoral look to the home. Normally, they make use of pastel colors and chipped paints to provide worn out look. Shabby chic furniture is mainly suitable for Victorian style homes, romantic and in lot of cottages. You can easily paint the shabby chic furniture once you decide how shabby you want it to be. There is actually no certain ways to paint rather you need only few guidelines to accomplish the task with perfectness. Make use of pastel, light and vintage colors and let paint dry completely between two coats. Here we will describe you complete way to do so.
Things to be used
- Wood furniture
- Sandpaper
- Electric palm sander
Method
- First, prepare the piece of furniture. Start with cleaning of furniture thoroughly between the designs and let it dry. Repair the damage on the furniture, if any, and segregate its parts. E.g. If it is a drawer, then separate all the compartments from the main chest and arrange separately on the ground. In case you plan to use this hardware again in the near future then take benefit of this opportunity to clean it as well.
- Now start sanding the surface of the furniture. Next step is to remove the finish or paint, whatever you may like or simply sand the gloss from the paint. If the furniture is already painted, smoothen out all the bumps on it, and level the surface. Be careful in doing s, otherwise, you will end up messing it. End the process with cleaning of dust on the furniture with a tack cloth or clean rag.
Sanding Technique
- Second thing you need to learn is sanding technique. Start with a thin layer of paint, apply it throughout the furniture, and leave it for drying. Repeat this process few times; you can make use of either spray paint or paintbrush to do so.
- Now it is time to paint the last coat on your future shabby chic furniture. When it becomes a little dilapidated then start the process of sanding the edges and the places where it has the chances of wearing out over the years. It is recommended that you wait until it completely dries out. However, you will just have to make use of a little more hard work.
- Cleaning should be done at the end by a tack cloth or a rag.
- The last step is to apply the matte finish all over the surface of your new shabby chic furniture to protect its finish.
Petroleum Jelly Technique
- In this method, you need to apply a coat of petroleum jelly on the areas that will normally wear out over the time.
- Then start painting the furniture and several layers need to be applied. Please make sure you provide enough time in between to let it dry.
- Wipe the exterior with a clean cloth and start removing the paint wherever you applied the petroleum jelly in the first step. Smear the surface a little bit and then clean it smoothly. This technique provides more chipped look as compared to the sanding technique. So you can make your choice depending on how chipped you want your furniture to be.
- End the process with painting a clear matte finish on the surface of piece of furniture to protect the finish.
Note: it is better to use of latex paints for shabby chic furniture because even if you mess up, it can be easily mended by reapplying.