Old and Improved Armoire



I was inspired by other bloggers today to do something that I have been questioning and putting off for some time. What and who were my inspirations? First of all, I saw My Sweet Savannah's beautiful new hutch in her dining room a few days ago. I was drooling! I loved the paint combination on the piece. It just had such a pretty finish. Then today I saw Jennifer Rizzo's transformation of a piece of furniture that she had found and painted. I finally put two and two together. Maybe I can't buy that beautiful hutch but I can change a piece that I already own into something close. That was my push to do it. The armoire in the dining room had great bones but I just never loved it for some reason. As Nate Berkus always says, "You should never bring anything into your home that you don't love." Well, easy for him to say, I'm sure he can buy anything he wants, but for the rest of us, we buy things we can afford and settle with it or we inherit things out of need.That's where being able to transform a piece of furniture comes in. I knew that I wanted to do something to my armoire, but what? Once I saw that furniture piece at My Sweet Savannah, I knew....

Here is the before.

First I lightly sanded the entire piece.

Next I painted the Grey/Blue which is actually leftover primer.

When I painted, I left some of the wood showing through. Luckily this piece already had some distressing which made it easy. If you want this look, you can beat it up a little with a flat head screwdriver, making some holes and indention's. I painted over some of the hardware but if you don't like that look, either remove it or tape over it. Also, I left some wood unpainted because I wanted that to be an off white for contrast like the piece at My Sweet Savannah.

After everything was painted, I went over the entire piece with a honey gel stain to give some antiquing and shine. You can see here the difference it makes in color and finish.

This is the back of the fabric panel that goes on the inside back of the piece. I had to cut foam core to fit. First, I layed out the  fabric face down, then the batting on top off that and lastly the foam core. Fold the fabric and batting layers over the foam core and staple. Even though this fits snugly, I added some Velcro to really have a strong hold. I did this part a while back and have an old tutorial about it but I thought I would recap again here if you missed it.

Once the back was installed I could add the shelves back in....

 This piece had very dainty hardware which wasn't working with the chunky chandelier so that was changed out a while back as well.

Now it feels like a completely different dining room, full of new possibilities. I'm so glad that I took this on today.  A big thank you to the wonderful bloggers, Jennifer Rizzo and Melaine Thompson at  My Sweet Savannah for their inspiration. I finally have a piece that I love! I might not have done it without you.

Do you have a piece of furniture that you're not loving? After doing this today, I wish I had done it a lot sooner. My advice to you is to roll up your sleeves and get to it. You'll be glad you did!

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