Let's take some dated country pine furniture and give it a little French flair and a new life.
Don't get rid of your old furniture, especially if you like the shape of it, instead let me help you paint it. If you live in Sydney you can hire me to paint your furniture or if you want to tackle it yourself, read below on how to take some issues specific to country pine furniture.
Aaron and Abbey had these solid pine bedsides for several years. They liked the shape but wanted to give them a new look so they asked me to give them a new look. When they dropped them off I showed them some different pieces in my home painted in various whites and they settled on Dulux Limed White Quarter Strength. This is one of my favourite muted whites. It is more beige/grey than cream, which is an important factor for me and my dislike of yellow hues.
In the photo above it is difficult to see the imperfections in the timber but these bedsides had been aged with fake wormholes. Manufacturers will often do this to country pine to give it a look of having survived a borer attack. The look is achieved with poking a sharp skewer type implement into the timber to give it "holes". When you paint this timber the holes all show up drastically as black spots and ruin (in my opinion) the white finish.
I find the best method is to put down a layer of primer first as this immediately shows up all the issues. Then once the primer is dry, find and fill the holes with wood putty. I just use my finger for this rather than a spatula. It's slightly messy but if you are refinishing furniture you are probably already used to mess. Once the timber putty is dry, sand smooth and give the piece another layer of primer. You may need to give a second round of timber putty and primer. I also found some small spots where the pine was bleeding through the paint (pine is renowned for bleeding from its knots) so my third and final coat of primer was Zinsser BIN - the shellac based one. It's such a trusty product to have on hand. The ultimate problem solver.
When you are happy with your smooth surface and have primed all the timber putty bits you can start painting. I gave these an additional three coats of Limed White for solid coverage. I sanded them smooth and gave them a couple of top coats of wax for durability. I also changed over the handles to some lovely black/bronze knobs - much more suitable for these beauties than the iron rings.
Get the dog to stop photo-bombing
and
voilà!
Abbey and Aaron were delighted with their "new" pieces. Don't they look beautiful and refreshed?
There's nothing like paint (and some time and effort) to give country pine some french flair.
Fiona xx
This came at a create time, I found a wooden bin at the Farmers market in orange pine, perfect shape and size and I already knew the colour I wanted to paint it and grabbed the paint on the way home the first coat of undercoat showed the nail and staple holes, and I knew exactly what to do. Thanks
ReplyDeleteOkay, here's my question. I plan to chalk paint a similar pine item, yet want to distress so that a bit of the stain does come through under the paint. I was reading I needed to use a shellac over the pine first so that it prevents the bleeding, but the shellac's I'm looking at in the USA have a clear option, great for distressing obviously, if you want that stain to come through in the distress process rather than a primer white. Do you know of a clear shellac in Australia? Do Zinnser make one? Cheers!
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