Distressing furniture

My beautifully distressed TV unit.

after

before

Well this is a post that has been requested by a few of you.  My lounge room was in need of some enlightenment...... so with no money and having to work with what I have I decided my drab TV unit was going to be my culprit.  Here she is before, a dark stained unit, the drawers have already been removed before I remembered to quickly get a before shot.

The first thing I had to do was get all of the stain off.  Now this was a feat and a half as it was so thick and dark, almost like tar. I used a paint stripper. Very easy to use, just apply on quite thickly with paint brush and then remove with scrapper.

stain came off like Vegemite...... umm yum!!!!!

Then next step was to sand the crap out of it until I was happy with getting most of the old stain off to reveal the blond timber underneath. 

Might I add at this point it is a very wise idea to wear your oldest most disgusting clothes you own as they will get covered in Vegemite like tar stain as you can see from this lovely photo!!

Next step I love..... paint, paint, paint.  Chose a colour, I went with calico white and paint on one coat. 

Let dry then coat with a crackle medium

Choose your top colour, I went with this turquoise colour. Once your crackle medium has dried paint your final colour over.  It is important to do this top coat within 6 hours of puting the crackle medium on.  As the top coat dries you will notice it cracking nicely to reveal the undercoat colour.

Now I know you thought you were done with the sanding........but wait there is more!!!!  This is the fun artistic bit of finally getting to distress the unit. Striping back the layers to reveal some blond timber, this just gives it a more authentic look.  Focus on the edges and around the handles as this would be the areas most distressed.  Apart from that go wild with the sander. The more distressed the better!!! I'm planning to distress this even more when I can get my hands on a belt sander.  I just used a little mouse sander which does the job well but I really want to take most of the colour off the top with a belt sander.

distressed doors

distressed drawers

distressing the sides, focused on the slates.

top surface, not quite finished.  Going to use a big belt sander to get most of the colour off the top. Give it a nice farmhouse feel.

Here she is in all her distressed glory! Definitely gives the room a fresh, bright feel. Not so drab anymore...

Hope you have a fun time distressing some furniture!!!

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Lots of Quirky Love

Leisa