Reuse, refresh and renew an antique bedroom set
Posted by Misty Montano on Monday, August 6, 2012
Under: Home
Two weeks ago we bought a home! If you've been following our journey you know it's taken a lot longer than we thought with many twists we didn't expect, like living with my in-laws for almost a year. You'd think after everything we would have rushed right in and moved in, but that didn't happen.
I paused when standing in our new home holding the key in my hand for the first time. The house was our clean slate to make ours. I asked my dear husband for time to move in to make sure everything was as perfect as possible instead of rushing in and wishing months later we'd taken the time to really decide how we wanted to set up the house. Then I asked for even more time to refinish our bedroom set.
When we moved out of our old house we gave away our queen-size bed to go to a full-size bed - yes we chose to go smaller. (What.. we like to cuddle ;) At that time we were under contract on our first house. We were a few weeks away from closing when we saw an estate sale in the neighborhood and checked it out.
We found an antique bedroom set with a long dresser, a tall dresser with mirrors, a bedstand dresser and a bed headboard. It was definitely the bedroom set of our grandmothers, complete with grandma mothball smell and all. We liked the look and how it would fit in the house we were set to buy.
Then the contract fell through and so started our year-long journey to buy a home.
The home we bought (the 4th contract) has been almost completely remodeled and updated. Our antique furniture no longer fit with our modern master bedroom. With a skeptical look from my DH I went off to Home Depot to see what I could do to update our bedroom set that is very ornate with deep ridges in the design.
Then I stumbled on Rustoleum Furniture Transformations. I asked the paint expert at the counter about the product and decided this is a system I could do.
I chose to refresh our antique set in a modern shade of espresso.
The system was as easy as the instructions claimed.
1. Clean with de-glosser to remove dirt and grease
2. Paint
3. Apply decorative glaze - optional
4. Apply protective top coat
The only problem with the system I had was with the decorative glaze. Instructions say to paint it on in on in small sections and then wipe away leaving only what you want for the look. In doing this some of the paint came off. I don't know if this was my fault, user error in someway or not, or if the paint didn't adhere to the furniture correctly for some reason.
My solution was to use a dry brush technique where I brushed very little on at a time to get the effect I wanted. I still found that on some of the edges in the ornate decoration of the furniture the paint still came off. It wasn't much and easily touched up with the paint sans the glaze.
The renewed bedroom set looks awesome in our new bedroom!
Cost:
Bedroom set bought at estate sale: $170
2 Rustoleum Furniture Transformation kits: $70 plus tax
New knobs and pulls for the drawers: ??? haven't bought them yet!
Dear Husband's Reaction: "wow, you just turned a used bedroom set into something that would sell for more than 4times what we paid!"
I paused when standing in our new home holding the key in my hand for the first time. The house was our clean slate to make ours. I asked my dear husband for time to move in to make sure everything was as perfect as possible instead of rushing in and wishing months later we'd taken the time to really decide how we wanted to set up the house. Then I asked for even more time to refinish our bedroom set.
When we moved out of our old house we gave away our queen-size bed to go to a full-size bed - yes we chose to go smaller. (What.. we like to cuddle ;) At that time we were under contract on our first house. We were a few weeks away from closing when we saw an estate sale in the neighborhood and checked it out.
We found an antique bedroom set with a long dresser, a tall dresser with mirrors, a bedstand dresser and a bed headboard. It was definitely the bedroom set of our grandmothers, complete with grandma mothball smell and all. We liked the look and how it would fit in the house we were set to buy.
Then the contract fell through and so started our year-long journey to buy a home.
The home we bought (the 4th contract) has been almost completely remodeled and updated. Our antique furniture no longer fit with our modern master bedroom. With a skeptical look from my DH I went off to Home Depot to see what I could do to update our bedroom set that is very ornate with deep ridges in the design.
Even though I wanted the time to move in right, I didn't want to get myself involved in a project that would take too long, and possibly end in disaster. After minutes of inspecting cans and cans of stain, varnish and shellack. I read instructions for removing old stain, sanding furniture and proper brush strokes with the grain of the wood. It seemed too overwhelming for me to do.
Then I stumbled on Rustoleum Furniture Transformations. I asked the paint expert at the counter about the product and decided this is a system I could do.
I chose to refresh our antique set in a modern shade of espresso.
The system was as easy as the instructions claimed.
1. Clean with de-glosser to remove dirt and grease
2. Paint
3. Apply decorative glaze - optional
4. Apply protective top coat
The only problem with the system I had was with the decorative glaze. Instructions say to paint it on in on in small sections and then wipe away leaving only what you want for the look. In doing this some of the paint came off. I don't know if this was my fault, user error in someway or not, or if the paint didn't adhere to the furniture correctly for some reason.
My solution was to use a dry brush technique where I brushed very little on at a time to get the effect I wanted. I still found that on some of the edges in the ornate decoration of the furniture the paint still came off. It wasn't much and easily touched up with the paint sans the glaze.
The renewed bedroom set looks awesome in our new bedroom!
Cost:
Bedroom set bought at estate sale: $170
2 Rustoleum Furniture Transformation kits: $70 plus tax
New knobs and pulls for the drawers: ??? haven't bought them yet!
Dear Husband's Reaction: "wow, you just turned a used bedroom set into something that would sell for more than 4times what we paid!"
In : Home
Tags: recycle reuse renew refresh "antique furniture" "bedroom set" "bedroom furniture" antique "do-it-yourself" diy
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Misty Lou, Misty Jean, Mistycal and even Extrafancy are just a few of the nicknames to which I answer. The most important names though are Wife, StepMom and Mom. With all these names it's sometimes hard to know who I am! This blog started as a Nebraska girl learning, trying, succeeding and failing at gardening in Colorado. Along the way in growing my garden, I grew my family too as I married a wonderful man and became StepMom to two precious Boys. Now our family grows more as we have a Baby Girl. So here is all of me as I share my family, home and garden. BTW my middle name is Jennifer; my name is Misty Jennifer Montano.
