I have seen so many beautiful pieces of furniture done with lace painting and I really wanted to give it a go. I think it gives such a beautiful and unique finish and is such a great way to dress a dated piece.

I didn’t have to wait too long as I got this set of drawers which was in need of some serious TLC and was desperate for a transformation.

It was an old set of drawers, it was very sturdy but it was damaged on the outside, the sides of it were chipped and it just looked so plain.

I decided to give it a makeover and chose to use blue and white theme for this.

First, I cleaned the furniture thoroughly and removed the drawers, I removed the stickers and the ugly handles. I had an image in my head of what I wanted it to look and thought that nice crystal door knobs would look lovely over the lace background, so I filled the original holes with woodfiller, and once they were dry I sanded them down. I then measured where the new holes should go and drilled them, sanding around to remove any bits of wood.

As the sides were so badly damaged, I tried to fix the damage and used some wood filler to fill the chipped area and once they were dry I sanded them slightly..

I still wasn’t too happy with the result, so I decided to add some decoupage into this project too. I picked Clara Damask wallpaper, which has a lovely raised texture and glued it on the sides of the drawers using mod podge.

As the wallpaper was mink colour, I painted overi it using white eggshell paint to match my colour scheme and let it dry!

I painted the surface and the edges using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White.

I sanded in between coats and waxed the top over using Annie Sloan’s clear wax.

Then came the fun part – doing the lace painting!! For this project I wanted to use my Rust Oleum paint in blue shade called Belgrave. You may recall that I used this shade for my – From Drab to Fab feature when I transformed an old bookcase and I absolutely love this shade of blue!

I painted the drawers and let them dry. This paint is lovely to use and goes on nicely, it dries so quick too so it allows you to finish painting several coats the same day. I used two coats and sanded slightly in between. REMEMBER NOT TO WAX THE DRAWERS.. WAXING IS ALWAYS THE LAST STEP AND WE WERE NOT FINISHED YET!

As I was using Rust Oleum spray paint on top of the Rust Oleum furniture paint and did not know how these paints would react, I tested it first on a piece of wood.

YAY!!!! I was super excited and loved the lace effect.

I cut out the lace to the size of the drawers and taped them on the sides as I didn’t want the lace to move, especially as it was quite a windy day. I didn’t care and was adamant I had to spray THAT day…

I sprayed at a distance in slow movements, trying not to have the aerosol too close to the lace and have an even layer. With the wind, it didn’t quite work to the plan.. TIP FOR MYSELF – next time try and do it when it is not windy..

I left the lace on for a bit as I was scared to move it in case it looked rubbish, so after a few minutes I slowly removed one side and peeked underneath. As I was not entirely happy with coverage (very windy day + spray paint doesn’t really mix), I took the drawers in the garage and sprayed another quick coat of paint and let it dry.

When I saw the drawers I thought they didn’t quite have the dramatic colour effect I though it would, but then realised that the drawers haven’t been waxed yet, so the blue will deepen in colour and have more contrast.. phew!

Then it was time to wax the drawers! I sanded only slightly as there was a bit of a grain on top, but not too much as I didn’t want the lace pattern to blur too much… I used Rust Oleum clear wax for this as I thought it is better to use the same products (I am a little OCD), I am sure other waxes would have been ok. Once I was waxing the drawers, I could see that the colour deepened and the drawers were looking lovely!

I then added the glass knobs and inserted the drawers and the piece was finished.

My first attempt at lace painting turned out even better than I expected!! What do you think of this transformation??





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Featured in RELOVED magazine, August 2015 edition