Why I LOVE Me Some Painted Furniture.

Ever since we signed up as Wise Owl Paint distributors, we have really amped up our painting around here. Also, ever since I bought the mill in January, we have actually had a dedicated workspace to paint in. More on what else has changed at the mill soon. Don’t worry, it’s ALL good. Except that we miss Deb. A lot.

Update Furniture With Paint

I shared some “how to” tips on a few pieces on a previous blog. I thought it would be fun to show you the before, during, and after photos, as well. I’m also going to throw in a little of the WHY I started painting furniture.

Who hasn’t had this nightstand in their past? Or something super similar. It’s pretty …yawn…boring as is, however, the good news is, it’s SUPER well made. Can you believe, it’s over 40 years old, and still in outstanding shape as far as the condition? As the old saying goes, “They don’t make ’em like they used to!” This is precisely why I started painting furniture in the first place.

Painting Furniture is Budget Friendly

As a mother of 4 young children 25 years ago or so, we were on a pretty tight budget. I had quit my job to stay home with them. After buying my son, Ian, a brand new nightstand at Art Van and him completely destroying it within the first few years of owning it, I looked at his dresser. He had inherited MY dresser that had been in my nursery. At that point, the dresser was well over 20 years old and in WAY better condition than that nightstand, which I had paid $200 for!

I had also started watching the Christopher Lowell show. If you’re old like me, you may have watched him, too. He was silly, but a ton of fun to watch. I learned a lot from him. Including, that I should be buying ALL of my furniture second-hand. This is when my garage sale/thrift store addiction set in.

Creativity & Elbow Grease

Soon, I realized that with a little paint and elbow grease, I could have some pretty darn nice coordinating furniture. All on my small budget. I say coordinating instead of matching because I don’t like anything too matchy/matchy. To me, it’s much more interesting NOT to have everything matching.

To conclude, we kept the original hardware on the nightstand, added some blue paint, and sanded off some of that blue paint to create a distressed look. I love the original wood showing through. We sealed it with our Wise Owl furniture salve. I have to say, we really love that stuff!

Fresh on the floor, pre-staging. 15″ D x 26″W x 23″H, $125

And, here it is all gussied up in its vignette awaiting the market.

Did you notice how the distressing really makes all of the detail stand out? It was lost before it was painted. Isn’t it awesome how it matches this vintage Nutting industrial cart now, too? Which by the way, was completely unintentional and is also available for purchase for $698.

This dresser started life around the same time as the nightstand. We used to call this look “Early American” back in the day

In the work room, ready for its transformation

Still in the work room. 18″ D x 30″ W x 41″ H, $198

Did you notice the detail stands out so much better after the new look, too? I share in the blog from the other day how we achieved this look.

And, here she is looking stunning! I love mixing the old with the new. It gives character to the new things and updates the old.

On the floor awaiting you to come to see her at the market.

I have one more awesome transformation to show you. We updated a pair of these tables from black to “Refurbished Gentleman” by Wise Owl. You can’t really tell in the photo, but the paint job on these was less than stellar.