When wooden furniture loses its shine there are two options for every homeowner – you can either revive your furniture or you can cash-in on one of the most popular design styles, shabby chic.
In this article we’re going to show you how to attain both looks from your lack-lustre wooden furniture:
1) Upcycling
Up-cycling and repurposing furniture has played a big part in the design world for a while amongst creative types. Many homeowners clamber to perfect the shabby-chic look for their interior through upgrading their tired-looking with a lick of paint.
Here’s how to achieve a shabby-chic look:
- Remove any handles or hinges from the piece and strip the furniture of any existing paint or varnish with sandpaper.
- Wipe it down to remove any dust or dirt and leave to dry
- Depending on the condition of your wooden furniture you may need to use a primer in order to ensure the paint goes on evenly.
- Select your paint colour.
- Leave to dry
- If you’re looking for a more clean-cut look to your wooden furniture all that is left to do is apply wood varnish to protect the paint.
- For those that want a more rugged appearance of their wooden furniture, distressing is the next step. Simply use a piece of sandpaper on accent areas or alternatively you can use metal tools to beat the furniture.
- Seal the distressed look with a varnish but don’t go overboard when applying as shabby chic isn’t supposed to have a shine on it.
- Want to change it up? Why not buy individual drawer handles for a more quirky look – you can pick these up from markets and hardware stores.
2) Bring your furniture back to life
However, upcycling and the ‘shabby chic’ look isn’t for everyone.
For wooden furniture that isn’t in a bad condition but has simply lost its colour you can easily revive the wood using a combination of tools and elbow grease.
- Sand the wood to open pores
- A good wood cleaner can be found in most paint and hardware shops. Apply this, letting it soak into the wood for a couple of hours. Wipe it down later to remove dirt, old wax and varnish. This will also restore the original colour of the wood.
- The next step is to apply oil to protect revived inside and garden furniture. We recommend furniture oil which you can apply in even strokes with the pad included. Just remember to always apply in the direction of the wood grain.
- If you’re using this technique on garden furniture, the soaked-in oil will restore natural oils lost through weathering.
Did these methods help you bring your wooden furniture back to life? Tweet us @greenerideal and let us know.
