the easy way to paint furniture.

Published on by Quandie

I picked up this chest on chest dresser at a garage sale a little over a week ago.

I’m a big fan of this style.  I’ve done a few others (here, here, here, here, and here).

This one needed just a little bit of work before I got started painting.  Ken had to reglue a foot at the back, and then re-attach the top section to the bottom section.  The seller had taken them apart, but they weren’t meant to come apart.  Once the two sections were put back together, Ken also had to re-attach the trim that went around the spot where the two came together.

Next I removed the knobs and scuff sanded the entire thing.  It was quite scratched up, so I wanted to even out the surface a bit plus promote good adherance of the paint (Dixie Belle recommends scuff sanding to prep for their Silk paint).

Looking at that dark reddish stain color, I decided to make life easier for myself and paint this one a dark color.  Plus, it’s a fairly masculine looking piece, so a dark charcoal grey seemed an appropriate choice.  So I pulled out some of Dixie Belle’s new Silk paint in a color called Black Sands.

I’m going to share a huge q tip with you here.  Don’t be confused into thinking that Black Sands is the black Silk paint.  It’s actually a very dark charcoal grey.  I made the mistake of ordering the Black Sands thinking it was black.  Turns out that the color called Anchor is actually the black.  Hopefully this tip saves a few of you from ordering the wrong color!Besides making painting this one easier with a dark color, I also chose the Silk paint because it doesn’t require a topcoat so it saves the effort of waxing or adding a clear topcoat.  Plus, it has a built in stain blocker, just in case that reddish stain decided to bleed through a bit.  That isn’t usually a problem if you use a dark color, but sometimes that bleed thru can create a shadow through dark paint.

I ended up needing only one coat, plus a few touch ups here and there (spots I missed because I have terrible lighting in my workshop) to cover this dresser.  I also did two coats on the top of the dresser for added durability.

I was able to paint the first coat one evening after work.  The next day I added the 2nd coat to the top and then added the stencil (using Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy) …

This stencil is from Maison de Stencils, although I’ve seen almost an exact match for it available from Wallcutz as well.  With Wallcutz you can order different sizes which is a nice feature, at Maison de Stencils it is available in this one size only.  I filled in the bridges in the letters using a small brush to give it less of a ‘stenciled’ look and more of hand painted look.  If you’re confused about what that means, here’s a little bench I painted where I didn’t fill in the bridges.

See the difference?

Next I sanded the edges to distress a little and added just a quick swipe of clear wax over those sanded edges.  I like to do that so that the freshly sanded edges don’t look quite so raw.

I kept the original wooden knobs because I kinda love the oversized look of them.  They also got a coat of paint, some distressing, a quick swipe of wax and then I popped them back on.

And that was it.  All that was left was taking the photos.  It may have actually taken me longer to take the photos and create this blog post than it took to paint the dresser!

I staged it with some laundry themed items including some pretty monogrammed linens and the enamelware box of vintage clothespins that my friend Sue gave me for my birthday.

The moral to today’s story; if you’re looking for the easiest way to paint a piece of furniture then give the Silk paint a try.

And if you’re local and looking for a new dresser, this one is available.  Check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

Thanks to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying the Silk paint used for this project.

18 thoughts on “the easy way to paint furniture.”

  2. That is such a nice bureau and I love its new look. Do you think Dixie Belle Silk paint would cover as well over kitchen cabinets that are commercially stained reddish-brown and sealed? I’d had planned on painting the cupboards in Benjamin Moore’s “Aegean Teal”. But if Silk paint is a good paint for the job, I would check if they have a similar colour. Thank you!

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    1. Adherance on kitchen cupboard can be tricky due to the grease that typically coats most surfaces in a kitchen. You’d want to be sure to clean them really well with the White Lightening cleaner, and scuff sand them as well. If you prep them well, I think you would be happy with the Silk paint. I think the real problem might be finding that specific color that you want. Take a look at the Dixie Belle website to see the color choices that are available.

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  3. LOVE this style dresser and the final outcome of this piece! I have a question regarding how much paint the dresser required. You pointed out that this piece required just one coat – how many jars of paint? I have quite a large cabinet want to paint with Dixie Bell Silk paint but have no idea how much to get. Thanks!

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    1. It took about 1/2 of the 16 oz. jar to paint one coat on this dresser. Had I needed to paint two coats, I likely would have used most of an entire 16 oz. jar. So, if your piece is bigger, and you are going from dark to light, or light to dark, you may want to get at least two jars of paint.

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  8. I love that color and the stencil. I have painted furniture for years and use Dixie Belle. I have read that the silk is a different kind of paint and not as easy to use. I would love to try this color on some mahogany furniture. Do you have
    any tips for using Silk.

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    1. It is different from chalk paint. Have you used the Fusion paint at all? It is similar in some ways to that paint. I always say that there are trade offs to everything. In this case, you are trading foolproof adherance for no need for a top coat. In other words, with the chalk paint you can skip prep work and still expect the paint to adhere to your piece for the most part (there are always exceptions to that as well). With the Silk paint you need to scuff sand your piece lightly and make sure that you’ve cleaned it well before painting, otherwise you could run in to adherance problems. The chalk paint can be thinned with water, the Silk paint can’t. You can overwork chalk paint and not run into any problems, but you want to be careful to not overwork the Silk paint (don’t keep going over it and over it with your brush). I’m a bit of an overworker, so I have to be careful to watch that with both Fusion paint and this Silk paint. In the end, I would say that the chalk paint is pretty much foolproof, but the Silk paint requires a little bit more care.

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  9. I love your makeovers and this paint color is perfect for this piece. I just don’t understand why you put a Laundry stencil on a dresser.🙃. I have seen you use a pretty floral transfer in a while. iOD Wander transfer would look so pretty on this. Thank you for sharing. You never disappoint.

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