This jewelry armoire furniture makeover was the beginning of a bit of an obsession for me. It was the first piece of furniture that I brought home and my very first furniture make over. At the time, I didn’t realize what it would lead to, I only knew I had an idea, and I was going to give it a try. I shared earlier in this post, about losing some of my blog posts so this is a rewrite of the original and it’s been a few years but I remember it well because it was the first. Since the photos continue to be a popular pin on Pinterest, I thought I’d rewrite the post for those pinners.
Way back when, I began to follow a blogger site called Centsational Girl. I enjoyed reading the posts and she quickly became one of my favorites. I enjoyed all of the home makeover projects she completed. The name of her site is slightly different today. For a while, I thought I was loosing it, that somehow I had mentally mixed up my thoughts and gotten the name wrong. I was confused but finally figured out that she had actually changed the name! I felt a little relief, I wasn’t loosing it, (sometimes it’s the little things that make you wonder if you’re all there).
Aaannyway, she painted great deal of her makeover projects with spray paint. I was intrigued by that. I enjoyed reading how someone could turn old forgotten pieces into new useful items. Mostly, I couldn’t believe that some old decrepit thing could be turned into something so beautiful. How the person saw past the uuugly just amazed me.
Then It Happened To Me
I was at work and they guys had brought in a truck load of old junky items that had been removed from a house. They were headed to the landfill the next morning. As we were joking around about the state of some of the furniture, including this jewelry armoire, it came to me. “Maybe I could make this piece beautiful again”. I started looking at the junk differently. I asked if it would be possible for me to take a couple of the old pieces home. My boss looked at me with a “you’re crazy” look, and said, “Whatever Floats your boat DeeAnna!” and laughed his way to the office. I brought 3 small pieces of furniture home over the next couple of days! That was close to 7 years ago and the are all beautiful today. I have 2 pieces in my house, and my daughter has the other in hers.
So How’d I do it?
To begin this Jewelry armoire makeover I cleaned, and cleaned. I had to get all of that gunk out of the carvings. To be honest I really didn’t like the carvings, especially the ones around the legs. But hey, it was a free piece for me to experiment on so I went for it. I’m still not sure what was in the carved pieces, I think it may have been some sort of wax but I had to scrape it out as best as possible.
I had to tape off a little once the doors of the jewelry armoire were open so as to not get paint on the felt fabric. I thought about painting it because I think the green is ugly but it was in good shape, dirty but in good shape, so I cleaned it (vacuumed and wiped with a wet cloth) and then left it alone.
Then came the paint
It took me a little while to decide on a color for the jewelry armoire makeover. I ultimately decided on Silver and chose a Valspar paint similar to this. Since I’ve painted this piece, they’ve changed the paint can, and maybe even the paint. I primed the piece with a gray spray primer. In hindsight, I wish I would have put 2 coats. It would have helped with the coverage of the silver paint.
It took a few cans of paint…if I remember correctly it was 3. The silver metallic looked blotchy at first but the multiple coats helped. As it cured it began to look good! I wanted to highlight the carvings so I decided to try a glaze. I mixed some black paint into a faux glaze that I had on hand. Then wiped in onto the areas that I wanted highlighted. Let it sit for a few and then wiped off the excess. Honestly, today, I wouldn’t do that, I’d probably dry brush instead. But back then…it worked ok and I was satisfied with the results
And it worked!
Here’s the finished piece!
Sorry for the glare, that silver paint was hard to photograph. I was proud of my jewelry armoire furniture makeover…and I am glad to say that I proved my neighbor wrong…He said that spray paint was not a good idea, it shouldn’t be used to paint furniture. He was wrong. Don’t you think?