Armoire Redo

 I bought this armoire unfinished from Sears in 1989. During the mid to late 80's I was heavily into country decor. I never liked the goose and duck look, however I did like mauve and Williamsburg blue. My living room had floral Bishop sleeve curtains in shades of mauve, cream and Williamsburg blue with lace panels in between and matching floral slipcovers,(whew that's a lot of flowers).Those colors led me to believe it was a good idea to assault the armoire with a mauve pickling stain! What was I thinking? Then I decided on a whim one day to paint it brown, I hated it right away and halfway through aborted that mission, so it sat like that for years! 

This is what I started with, WARNING!!! it's atrocious.

See I told you it was baaaaad.  To get the ugly out of your mind here's another after shot.

please forgive the ugly wall and unfinished baseboards we are prepping to paint and put in new floors

 I bought a can of flat white paint and added about 1/4 cup of whiting. That thickened the paint. The  idea was to give it a chalky texture, like that famous paint,you know the one that's not in my budget LOL, then I added black pigment to the paint until I got the shade of grey of wanted.

My husband cut crown molding for me and we attached it to the top to give the armoire a little more presence.  Then I painted it with my homemade concoction. I used a cheapo paint brush and slap dashed the paint on to give it variation in texture and color. After I painted it I put a coat of clear wax on and while the wax was still wet, I applied another coat of wax that I tinted white with one part pigment to five parts wax. I wiped off the excess wax and after it dried I applied another coat of clear wax and after the wax dried I buffed it lightly.

The white wax softened the gray and it has an aged and sort of whitewashed appearance. This was my first time trying this technique and I'm pretty happy with the results. If you wanted too you could distress it further but I elected to keep it this way, I wanted it simple and just softly worn.

This will be going in my bedroom, another huge undertaking. Thanks for looking. I'll be joining these great parties this week,


                                                 Blue Egg Brown Nest

                                                Debbiedoos

                                               Savvy Southern Style

                                                        My Romantic Home