VINTAGE SHABBY CUPBOARD

My re-furbished Vintage Shabby Wine Cupboard.


So I had this loud and kinda ugly wine cupboard in an already dark, narrow hallway in my house and every time I passed by it I bumped my leg on it because it was hard to see... mind you, the flowers were so bright and ugly "they" looked like glow-in-the-dark stickers!!! LOL


The other day I decided I had enough and when I realized I had three cute crowns ornaments in my studio I started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel... I immediately went in to "creative-mode" and  imagined a much lighter, much shabbier and a lot prettier cupboard than would not hold wine like it never  did anyways.

This is how I did it.
I took the time to sand the whole piece, then I primed the whole piece with several layers of strong primer to hide as much black as i could, then, I started the paint mixing experiment oft he century... My version of CHALK PAINT!!

Chalk paint is, as its name insinuates, a chalky, smooth, matte and soft type of paint that's easy to work with if you want to achieve an old, weathered look.
My mixture consisted in metallic silver paint (Martha Stewart collection) - Plaster Of Paris - white craft acrylic paint - water.
After I painted the whole thing I let it dry well before I hand-sanded the entire cupboard again, this step is necessary to prevent unevenness and unwanted texture before staining it.

I heavily stained the basket openings much darker than the outside of the cupboard because I wanted more drama in that area.
To do that, I used a cheesecloth dipped in a watery mixture of gold acrylic paint and i dubbed it and smudged it until I was satisfied with the results.

 I was a lot more gentle with the outside of the cupboard because i only needed to highlight the details in the woodwork so I used a cleaner piece of cheese cloth and gently smudged only the areas I wanted some gold on.

I left the legs (or base) of the furniture unpainted because I took advantage that they were solid wood and I sanded all the black paint off creating a very unique and interesting design and texture on the wood, then I used the same cheesecloth I stained previously with and painted them, doing that brought all the leftover paints and wood grains back to life.

 



Just because I'm an adventurous crafter, I decided to stencil a couple of  swirls on the counter of the cupboard with the same chalk paint knowing that the plaster in the paint would give me a 3-dimensional result and this is what I end up with...

This magnificent piece was a surprise even to myself... although I new what I wanted to look like I wasn't really sure how it was going to end up looking .

and it looks great on the same corner it used to be only now, I don't bump against it anymore!!



Thanks for reading my post!