Most of our furniture is inherited, which is just a fancy word for hand me down, and this blanket chest is no exception. It belonged to my grandparents. When it arrived in our driveway it looked a little something like this…
Yeah, not so pretty. And not my style. I completely adored the farmhouse style hinges, so they stayed, but everything else needed to go! This is technically considered a blanket chest, but I needed some storage in our dining room for arts and craft supplies. When my mom offered this chest up to me, I knew exactly where I wanted to put it!
I decided to keep the top a classic wood so I sanded down the previous finish and added 2 coats of Minwax Dark Walnut. Once this was completely dry I put on two coats of polyurethane with a light sanding between coats.
For the base, I wanted an off white so I went with my classic Behr’s Belgium Sweet, which is the same color that I used for my kitchen cabinets to tie everything together in this big, open room. I did one coat of Kilz primer and two coats of paint to get a good finish and coverage.
That’s it! It was really simple. I think many people are scared to paint or re-stain furniture, but it’s really not nearly as hard as it looks. I decided not to distress this piece for now because I’m still debating what I’m going to do with our kitchen table and chairs. I want this cabinet to flow well with the dining set.
Here is a peek inside the top drawer and bottom cabinet. I use it to store paints, brushes, crayons, coloring books, craft supplies, play-doh, our counting bears, pattern blocks, and other table activities.
I hope this simple tutorial gives you some inspiration to refinish a piece of furniture in your home!
What piece of furniture have you painted or stain recently?
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