Furniture make-over

I love old things. {I guess if you are familiar with my blog you should know that by now huh?}. I wanted my studio to be really ‘shabby chic’ and vintage-looking, with lovely French and English style inspiration.
My studio is still a work in progress (it probably always will be LOL!), full of pretty things that are simply “me”, with splashes of my favourite colours, roses, vintagey objets d’art and loads of storage space {self-confessed hoarder here!!}. I needed a cupboard for my scrapbooking papers, but I didn’t want another dark wood cupboard like the one I already had; It would simply make the room too dark. I needed colour.
So here’s what I did…
I didn’t want to spend a fortune so I bought this pine “armoire” (mine was raw unfinished wood, not stained like this example).


I found this one with doors lined with wire mesh. Perfect! I then painted the entire cupboard in a pretty French-inspired “duck egg blue’.




Then I grabbed my trusty oil paints (Raw Umber) and mixed a little drop with some raw linseed oil. I rubbed it all over the painted cupboard, taking care to get into all the grooves to get an aged patina. As I applied the linseed oil mixture, I also rubbed some off with a cloth to ‘knock back’ and age the blue paint colour.
Once the painting was complete, I replaced the ordinary round wooden door knobs with a pair of old looking rings. (I removed them from the cabinet prior to painting).
I also wanted the contents of the cupboard to be protected from dust. So I measured the inside of the doors and grabbed some pink and white toile fabric I had in my stash and measured it to fit the inside of the doors to cover the mesh. I stitched a hem all around and stitched velcro tape at the top and bottom.
I then staple-gunned the matching velcro strip at the top and bottom of the mesh inside the cupboard, then attached the fabric inside.
Very important! You want to remember to attach the velcro to the RIGHT side of the fabric! {Not like me- not thinking! Too much of a hurry!  – LOL - I had to undo my stitching and re-attach the velcro to the RIGHT side}. This is because you want to see the RIGHT side of the fabric through the mesh on the outside of the door.
I then hung two pretty flower and bead door tassels off the door handle rings to finish it off. I love how it turned out! {I never made the door tassels, but they actually would be so easy to make}.


I balanced little wooden words which I bought around 3 years ago in the USA (I think from Hobby Lobby) {knew I’d use them somewhere!} on the little ledge along the cabinet. The other two are “Love” and “Believe”. I stacked some vintage wooden Coca Cola crates on top to bring in a bit of the darker wood again.
Will post some more studio pics soon…

Veronica