Have you ever wanted to give your modern furniture a french country makeover?
Let me share how I achieved this look using Dixie Belle products! Jump to the bottom to see a quick time lapse video of this project.
Materials:
White Lightening Cleaner
Water in a Misting Bottle
Slick Stick
Drop Cloth Chalk Mineral Paint
Savannah Mist Chalk Mineral Paint
Grunge Glaze
Gloss Clear Coat
Gold Gilding Wax
Dixie Belle Mini Synthetic and Chip Brush
Blue Gatorhide Sponge
Chux, Paper Towel, water spray bottle
Cleaning and Prep
The first thing to do when you're about to paint is to remove all hardware and start cleaning with Dixie Belle's White Lightening.
Add 1 Tablespoon of White Lightening to 1 Litre of warm water
and swirl to help graduals to dissolve. I like to keep mine in a spray bottle to use as I need it. I recommend you wear gloves if you have sensitive skin. Spray onto your piece or your scrubby sponge and get to work. It can take more than one go over to clean some pieces.
Once you have scrubbed it well, you can use your water Mister and a
clean Chux to wipe off the cleaner residue.
Using Slick Stick
This piece was quite slick so I used 2 coats of Dixie Belle's Slick Stick to prepare my piece for painting. I applied one coat in the morning and one in the afternoon. It is then recommended that you wait 24 hours after the last coat to start painting.
Painting
Next I stirred my Drop Cloth Chalk Mineral Paint well and started applying it with my Dixie Belle Mini Synthetic Brush. I misted the bristles first to help the paint go on smoothly. Let dry (this took about 20 minutes on a hot day). The second coat required more misting on the dry painting surface as it was sucking up paint as I applied it.
When the second coat was dry I focused on the drawer fronts. I used 2 coats of Dixie Belle's
When that was dry I used more Drop Cloth to highlight the details and framing around the drawers.
Glazing
When Glazing it's a good idea to create a barrier between your painted surface and the Glaze as the porous paint likes to suck it up and that makes it hard to spread and wipe back.
I used Dixie Belle's Gloss Clear Coat on the whole piece as I was going to add Glaze to create an aged look. For this project I used Dixie Belle's Grunge Glaze. In the container it looks blue but it creates a wonderfully aged effect without being too brown. I applied the glaze using my well used Dixie Belle Chip Brush and wiped away excess using a paper towel. I concentrated on having the glaze set in the curves and details.
Using Gilding Wax
For the details I used Dixie Belle's Gold Gilding Wax. I just used my finger to apply it as I didn't want a perfect look. I wanted it to look like gilding that had worn away over time. Gilding Wax is oil based so this should be your last step as it will cure on it own. I also used the gilding wax on the metal handles (see photo below).
I'm very happy with the final result. It now looks like it belongs in an old french chateau. This lovely piece is available for purchase in our store in Singleton. Scroll down to see a quick time lapse video on this project from our TikTok account.
If you have any questions about achieving this look or want to enquire about purchasing this piece, please feel free to contact us on our social media pages (Facebook/ Instagram @theprovincialfarmhouse) or via email: theprovincialfarmhouse@outlook.com.
