Last year I shared a cute little chair that I gave a little bit of a spooky makeover to using a stencil.

I thought it was super cute, and it sold right away.  So I thought I’d give it another shot on a larger chair.

I purchased this pair of chairs thinking I’d save them for a similar treatment for Christmas (paint and a stencil) …

But recently I decided to try the Notice of Decommission stencil on one of them first.  If it doesn’t sell, I can always sand it down and paint it again for Christmas.

I started by cleaning the chair, scuff sanding it lightly and then painting it in Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.  I added the stencil using their Putty.

Next I sanded to distress and added a coat of clear wax.

And that was it.

Wouldn’t this chair be cute in your foyer, or on your covered front porch, for Halloween?

Since I loved the results on the chair, I decided to go out on a limb and use the same stencil on this little chest of drawers that I picked up at the White Bear Lake Trash to Treasure day.

I say I’m going ‘out on a limb’ because I really don’t know if a piece of furniture like this will sell with a slightly spooky theme.  But again, if it doesn’t sell I can always start over with fresh paint.  After all, that’s the beauty of paint.

It appeared as though this piece had been painted with spray paint, and it was starting to peel in some spots.  So I sanded more heavily than I normally would, I had to remove that spray paint almost entirely.  Your paint job is only as good as the surface under it, so painting over peeling paint doesn’t do anything to stop the peeling.

I then gave this piece a fresh coat of the Midnight Sky as well.  Then I decided to add a little depth to the piece by stenciling some designs using a slightly darker black with a tiny bit more sheen.  For that I used Dixie Belle’s Silk paint in Anchor.

I wasn’t entirely sure how this would work out, but I love the result I got.  It’s kind of subtle, and maybe even a little bit ghostly.  I used the Dixie Belle Harlequin stencil for the diamonds and the damask pattern is a stencil from re.design with prima.

Next I added my Notice of Decommission stencil, again in the Putty.

I sanded to distress, and topcoated with clear wax.

I had removed the original drawer pulls when I prepped this piece, and I decided not to put them back on because they would have covered up too much of the stencil.  So I went through my stash and found 4 black glass knobs.

The silver bolts that hold the knobs in place were a bit too jarring in the middle of the black knobs, so I painted them with the Midnight Sky first and then added a quick coat of Prima Marketing’s Bronze Age Metallique wax.  That warmed them up perfectly.

I staged my photos of this piece with Sean Scherer’s Kabinett & Kammer.

If any of you are familiar with that book, you’ll understand why.  The overall aesthetic leans slightly towards the dark and mysterious.

Even my use of the black metal strong box was inspired by this book.

I’m hoping that someone out there appreciates this style and will want to add a unique little chest of drawers to their home.

What do you think?

Both the chair and the chest of drawers are for sale.  Be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details if interested.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying the paint used for these makeovers.