And then I fretted about it. How many other people had contacted him already? Surely, everyone that saw this piece was just as giddy as I was? As I laid down to go to sleep I was envisioning crowds of people throwing their money at the owner yelling, “Pick me, Pick me!”
Silly, I know. It was just a buffet. But, my heart was totally pitter-pattering over it.
The next morning came and I woke up early to find an email response from an older gentleman. His response was sweet and his story was lengthy. I discovered that this buffet belonged to his 80 year old sister and that she had had it in her home for years and years and years.
I knew this wood buffet was old and it had a lot of history. The lovely stories he told combined with those beautiful carvings made my heart skip a beat. I was thankful to have the opportunity to acquire it.
But, I was torn.
I didn’t exactly love the wood grain. And I didn’t love the fact that those gorgeous carved details were hidden like a wall flower.
My eyes gravitated towards the grain of the wood instead of the details on this lovely buffet and I knew it had the potential to become even prettier then it already was. I was in love with the potential that this buffet had. And I knew that the only way to make those details pop was to paint it.
There will be some antique preservationists that will be annoyed with what I’m about to say and that’s okay! I’m a firm believer that if you don’t love a piece of furniture you should change it, so that you can love it.
I’d much rather devalue a piece of antique furniture by painting it then holding onto the monetary value and not personally enjoy it. I don’t advocate to paint every piece of wood furniture. But, if you’re going to bring something into your house to enjoy, then you ought to enjoy it!
If you don’t love a piece of furniture- change it so that you can love it. -Thirty Eighth StreetPainting this old buffet was going to make the carvings the star of the show.
We painted the base coat in the prettiest shade of blue. It’s called Midnight Sky from Country Chic Paint. If you like this shade, you’ll probably love General Finishes in Klein Blue as well!
The first layer was applied lightly and unevenly so that we could still see the original wood finish peak through.
We have a special way that we like to apply the paint so that it gives our pieces a naturally worn look. You can read all about our easy natural distressing technique here!
After our base coat was dry, we added another layer of paint. Only this time we mixed Country Chic Paint’s Midnight Sky and Vanilla Frosting together to create a slightly lighter version of the original base coat.
We used this second color to highlight a variety of areas in this piece using this dry brush technique. I like to use these chip brushes for this kind of highlighting.
The original top was in such great shape that we left it in its natural state. We preserved a little history and charm while giving this piece a whole fresh new look. And those details!? They are no longer competing! What a win-win!
What do you think? Do you agree with my decision to paint it? If you look really closely at this photo, you can see the different paint colors layered on this buffet. Would you believe that we didn’t use an ounce of sandpaper to distress this piece?
Nope. Nada. Not even a smudge of sandpaper! We used paint to distress it. I know. That sounds crazy, right?! How do you use paint to distress furniture?
It’s our natural distressing technique that we mentioned earlier in the post. It’s so EASY and one of our very best tutorials- it’s definitely worth checking out and/or pinning for later!