Who doesn’t love a unique, one-of-a-kind upcycled furniture piece to call their own?
As you may or may not know, here at Hoffer, we rent our furniture & decor, in addition to selling it. Sometimes, pieces come back from a rental not quite up to our standards for keeping in our rental inventory (maybe a few too many dents and dings – the signs of well-loved furniture), and that’s when it finds a new home in our 10,000 sqft clearance center, The Back Room. The Back Room is a great place to find home & office furniture with good bones at flea market prices or vintage pieces that we’re retiring from our inventory to make way for something new. Pieces found back there are ideal for DIY and upcycled furniture projects!
Sometimes, we even upcycle our own pieces! What’s old is new again, right?! 😉
Today, we wanted to share with you the before and after of some upcycled furniture pieces our team gave new life to, and give an overview of the process, so you can try it out yourself.
The Before
The main piece our team worked on was this beautiful pine chest.
She has a beautiful construction, and a unique look to her already, but we wanted to give her a contemporary look and ditch the pine.
We decided that a brand new coat of chalk paint would be just the thing to bring her back to life. Chalk paint is a very on-trend look right now, and it’s one of the easiest ways to repaint furniture!
The Process
Because we’re using chalk paint, you don’t need to prime or sand down your furniture before painting – just wipe of all the dust. Then get a high quality brush, tape off any parts you don’t want painted, and start applying! As long as you’re not trying to cover a very dark wood, it should only take about three coats. If you want to go for a shabby, distressed look, manually sand down edges and places that would naturally receive wear until you achieve the desired look. Lastly, finish with a coat of clear wax to seal in the paint and prime your new piece for many more years of use.
The best part about chalk paint? It dries quickly, too! A chalk paint upcycled furniture piece can easily be completed in an afternoon.
The After
She turned out beautifully! The contrast of the milky-grey chalk paint really makes her newly mirrored doors and clamshell hardware pop. A light distressing on her edges gives a glimpse of her original finish, and gives her just a touch of vintage. We added a bit of metallic detail to the beading along the bottom and spray painted all the glass for a mirror finish. All in all, we think this was a very successful project!
The one-of-a-kind Caralynn chest is now available to rent or buy! Feel free to come visit the showroom just to check out her gorgeous new paint job! But we’ve got lots of other pieces you’ll probably want to see, too 😉
Other Projects
You didn’t think we stopped at the chest, did you? Of course not!
Repainting frames is another great chalk paint project! We had several old art pieces around the showroom that were begging for a face lift.
Paint the glass on old frames in a black chalk paint for a functional chalkboard- perfect for events, parties, weddings, or even just DIY-ing some wall decor.
Don’t feel up for the DIY route? We’re also selling these finished pieces in the showroom if you want the look without the work.
Want a chalkboard sign for an event you’re hosting? We can rent them out for as little as one hour, too!
Whether you decide to tackle your own upcycled furniture projects or purchase one of ours, we hope this post was informative and inspired your inner designer!
