Creating a Shabby Farmhouse Finish

Welcome once again to Transformation Thursday! It's the one day of the week we all get together to celebrate getting stuff done. No matter if you've been coming around for quite a while or this is your first time, everyone is welcome to share their projects, big or small. Just link up at the bottom of this post.

Yesterday I shared the new lights we installed in our kitchen,
and today I'm sharing the table.

Mr. SCC was in too big of a hurry for me to take step by step photos of the table - booooo!

But, my friends, it's the paint job that makes this farmhouse table somethin' special!

I LURVE the weathered, worn finish of an old piece of furniture that's been smothered in layer after layer of beautiful colors of paint. However, I'm never lucky enough to find those great pieces on my itty bitty budget. So, I fake 'em.

I love a good farmhouse finish - but every other method I've seen takes layers and layers and layers of paint. I'm too impatient for all that. I do mine with one coat of paint. Know what? You can, too!

Start with two (or three or seventeen) colors of paint.
I love my Hawaiian Sky and Ultra White from Dutch Boy.

You'll also need 3 (or however many colors you're using plus one) paint brushes.
I actually recommend crappy brushes for this job.
Although I love my Purdy for the perfect finish, this one ain't perfect.
We're gonna scratch it up, scar it up, and treat it rough.
The cheap brushes means a rougher finish - which in this case is a very good thing.

Start with your first color and slap random patches of color here and there.
Get a little Jackson Pollock with it.

Then, fill in around the patches with your second color, but don't overlap too much.
With each big spot of paint, glop some extra in the middle.

Now you're gonna take the 3rd brush and drag paint from the middle glops and blend the edges of each one. Don't blend it all to one color, make it look all crazy and stuff. Think camo gone bad. Trust me... it's gonna be alright!

Do the legs and skirts, too. Don't leave them all nekkid and stuff.

The most important part?
Work quick! DO NOT take time to be careful.
Just slap the paint all over the wood, trying to cover 99% is just fine.
It only took me about 30 minutes to paint the entire table,
 including time to stop and take photos!
You can do this even faster if two people work together,
 one with the colors and the other doing the blending.

Alright, now go have some sweet tea and call your mamma so you can chat while the paint dries.

You're all dry? Ok, now comes the fun part!!! Let's get rough :)
Sand the top, edges, legs, wherever you slapped paint on it.
DO NOT be gentle.
The sanding is actually much more important to this finish than the painting is.

Sand more than you think you need, let a little wood peek through here and there.
The more you sand the better it looks.

Be sure to sand where two colors abruptly join,

so when you're finished it looks like two different layers.

Now let's glaze. I use Ralph Lauren Manor Grey.

(This recipe is for 1 gallon.)

But for this I also added in a little black and mixed it all up.

I also added a dash of water to thin it down a bit.

Take a dry cloth, dip it into the glaze and rub it into the surface.

Here's where the sanding job starts to shine.
The glaze will get caught in all those beautiful imperfections
and it creates a patina that is to die for.

Next I take a little off with a wet cloth (not real dry or super wet),
so that there are darker and lighter spots, making it all pretty and stuff.

The glaze tones it all down, marries all the colors together and unifies the paint.

After you've wiped it all down, add a little DecoArt paint
in a complimenting color to bare spots by rubbing it
straight onto the wood with your fingers.
This will help get it into the grain of the wood.

Although you could poly it, I had some beeswax from Ikea in my supplies.
I used a couple of thin coats, rubbing on and buffing off with a lint free cloth.

Now, she's all done. Excluding drying time, I did the entire table, by myself in about 2 hours. Even with drying time, I did it all in one day. I have finished several other pieces of furniture this way, and still love them.

I honestly love imperfections. What character!

Ditching the dining room was such a good idea!
Now we have more room for family dinners, board games,
and I have a bigger work surface, too!

Can someone go rush Polly to come help me make slipcovers?
I really want to put my current couch on this wall!

Thanks for sticking with my longest tutorial ever!
You really can do this, I promise.
Just test it on a scrap piece of wood.
You'll be amazed at how easy it really is.

Posted at The DIY Club

Furniture Feature Friday
& Gitter Done (thanks to Marianne for inspiring me get it done!)

Soooo.... whatcha got? I wanna see and so does everybody else! Just put your PERMALINK into the linky, and please link back here so everyone can find the great ideas. DO NOT link to an Etsy shop, online store or other selling venue. Be sure to say hi to your neighbors - it is a party after all. If you are new this week, please leave a comment letting me know!

Well.... Let'er rip, tater chip!