Adventures in chippy paint

 At least 3 years ago I hauled this chest home on foot from an inorganic roadside rubbish collection, I know what you are thinking, I have ZERO shame! I had my preschooler son with me and we tried to balance it on his balance bike on the walk home from preschool. He thought it was the funniest thing ever and was not at all interested in balancing it with me and zoomed off ahead of me. So I carried it home. Many stops later, (cause it's heavy) and just as I was at my driveway a car pulled up and asked if I wanted a hand! Garage space is currently at a premium and it's now or never to give it a makeover.

I've slowly been building up confidence in upcycling or making over furniture with Voodoo Molly Vintage paint. I decided that although I went to a huge effort to retrieve this piece that I wasn't worried in how it turned out, giving me a chance to experiment. Enter - the chippy paint technique!

So here are the progress shots and a quick explanation of it's transformation and final results. I'm not entirely convinced it's how I want to paint every piece of furniture I own, but everything is worth trying at least once right?!

 First step a light sand, you can easily see the difference, it was really just a light sand to remove the flaky old varnish.

As the wood was quite light I added some dark stain to the edges and other parts I might be sanding back. It also helped cover up some damage around one handle in the front.

Then I added colour to show through at the end, I used small amounts that I had left over from other projects, Green Tea, Dragonfly, Pistachio, you can find the paint here.

 Then I applied some Vintage wax with a palette knife in the areas I wanted the colours to show through, the edges mainly. It allows larger chunks of paint to peel off, leaving it looking more worn than if you just sanded back without wax.I must admit I had trouble trying to do it randomly, I'm perhaps not suited to this style of painting!

 Then a coat of white over it all! Then I just sanded back over the waxed areas.

Complete! It looks worn and weather-beaten and I'm not precious about it being bumped or knocked around, perfect style of painting if you have children!

I finished it off with a light buff of Vintage Wax to protect the surface.

If you are looking to try it, check out this quick how to video from Voodoo Molly, I love the look of brightly coloured chippy paint. Perhaps for the next blanket box I carry home?

draws or drawers?

I belong to a couple of "freecycle" and "buy and sell" pages on Facebook. I've lost count of the times I've seen people offer up draws" for sale or for free. I get a tiny little "grammar twitch" inside every time! Yet this time it's kind of accurate, these drawers have actually been drawn on!

So this is what I started with, not great. I can see why someone decided to put them out on the roadside rubbish collection, but  my eagle eye could spot the Rimu sides and Oak fronts and the potential! They are solidly built and are perfect for the transformation I had in mind.

I nailed and glued them together off centre from each other, creating an ever so slight zigzag effect. I found some little wooden legs on Trademe and my husband helped me get them screwed in the right spot. A quick sand and filled in some Borer holes (the Borer long since departed!). It's not perfect, the sides/ends of the drawers were not designed to be viewed and I could have spent hours trying to get them looking perfect, but as an upcycled piece I don't think perfection is really a factor!

Choosing the colour for the interior panels was a tough choice, in the end I chose Voodoo Molly Pistashio with my favourite Classic White for the rest. I painted the interior first, then decided that it would be nice to keep the wooden edges of the drawers unpainted, keeping the beautiful tones of the Rimu and the lighter tone of the Oak. I finished the wood with Voodoo Molly Vintage Clearcoat (low sheen) it's waterbased and gives such a lovely finish.

I'm really glad I kept the natural wood edges, it blends in well with my Punga Vase collection and is a nice little reminder to their original state!