When we moved into our home almost two years ago, the previous owners left a few odd pieces of furniture behind. Rather than chucking them, I kept them aside, I was sure that I could make them look better than they did and actually find a use for them. I have recently done two more Annie Sloan DIY projects on said furniture and today I am going to show you the one of them. If you missed my very first Annie Sloan DIY post, you can give it a read over here.

Before I begin, I must apologise for the lack of “before” pictures, I definitely did take some, but they have magically disappeared. This piece of furniture (I’m not sure if chest of drawers is the correct term, but I’m going to use it anyway) used to be a huge eyesore for me: it was a horrible red colour with a ton of shiny varnish – it really didn’t fit in with the vision we have for our home. In saying that though, I didn’t want to get rid of it, it was extra storage which I never say no to!

I picked up two of the Annie Sloan colours: Graphite, a soft black with blue and purple tones, and Pure, a clean white. Originally I was going to use Paris Grey but I decided that I wanted something darker, which led me to Graphite. I had also picked up three porcelain door knobs with a beautiful turquiose pattern from Simply French in anticipation of redoing the chest of drawers.

I’ve always liked the look of the frame and doors being different colours and decided to give it a bash on my chest of drawers. Like with my coffee table, I decided to go with a shabby chic look and so you can see a few brush strokes here and there and bits where the paint is more textured or worn away. It’s definitely not for everyone, but I quite enjoy it and to be honest, it’s pretty darn fool proof!

The whole process was really simple and I did the whole piece in three hours, including drying time! I decided to start with the frame and so I taped the doors off. I did three coats of Pure on the frame and when that was dry, I taped off the frame so that I could start with the doors. I added a tiny amount of Pure into Graphite, just so that it was more charcoal than black, and then I painted three coats with that as well. Once all the paint was perfectly dry, I started to rub in the clear soft wax, I have found that the best way to do this is to put a decent amount onto your piece and softly rub in large circles, grabbing a new cloth whenever you feel the need. You want to rub the wax in until your piece of furniture feels smooth and not sticky.

Once that was done, all that was left to do was to pop on the new door knobs and secure the chest of drawers to the wall. I am pretty chuffed at how it came out, and am thinking of painting the inside of it a bright turquoise colour, what do you think?