This week we bought a bargain TV in Tesco's Black Friday sale, but we didn't have a stand for it and eventually won this dark pine one on ebay for 1p. Side Note: it helps to do a local search on Bay Crazy and use the sniping bid app, My Ibidder with any auction listing to avoid unnecessary bidding wars .
I'm still pinching myself with my new bargain and saw much potential as soon as I saw it. In my favour, the ebayer said it wasn't real wood in the listing but could tell it was and their photo was dark and dingy and as soon as I got my hands on it, I put my painting clobber on to update it.
I would much rather paint something old, showing its character instead of paying in to something that's been mass produced. You can't really put a price on something you've transformed yourself; you enjoy it more, learn new techniques and still have supplies left over for the next piece that comes your way.
There were many scratches; nothing a good electric sander couldn't sort out and completely sanded off the wood stain of its top. Once stripped, I dark waxed with Annie Sloan immediately using some cut up old linen trousers, this way I could wash off any paint easily if I went a bit heavy with the brush, giving a more professional finish. This is my first try with dark waxing directly to untreated pine and loved the aged vintage look - it's something I've seen a lot inexpensive furniture boutiques but never had a piece to test it on. It really works.
Then once I'd keyed everywhere else for the paint to adhere better (but not as thorough as I did the top section), I painted with a thin coat of white primer using a mini roller. I generally prefer a random slapdash brushstroke look, but felt this was too modern to pull off and aimed for a less shabby look. Once this dried, I used up my discontinued Wickes Chalky Matt paint in Wolf (a pale greenish grey) - I am trying to use it all up as it's the only paint I have left and it's lasting forever!
And to seal the paintwork, I used a couple of coats with my clear rustoleum can of spray varnish, again, to try and clear out paint supplies in my shed, so vowed not to buy anything new until everything was gone.
I can't wait to buy more colours and doing more with wallpapering some of my projects - my Laura Ashley collection is growing faster than I can use them!
Hope you found it useful and feel free to comment below with your thoughts!
Best Wood Furniture to Flip for Profit
Update - because the TV unit was so lovely, in the end, I decided to sell it for £80 on eBay.
You can find more painting furniture ideas here where you can sell shabby chic furniture:
- Shabby chicing a table while sealing with varnish
- How to make whitewash paint, which I find is the perfect painting furniture for beginners tutorial
- You can buy old furniture to restore, like this dated faux mahogany veneer corner cabinet with glass windows
- Painting around a mirror
- How to frost a glass window, which is also great for furniture too
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