The Shabby Creek Cottage

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Creating a Shabby Farmhouse Finish

Love chippy layered paint treatments? Want to do it in a hurry? That’s the beauty of this shabby farmhouse paint finish – it’s so easy you can’t mess it up and quick enough to do it in one afternoon.
Shabby Farmhouse Paint Finish
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.

 

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Comments

  4. Your table is BEAUUUUUUUUUUTIFUL! Just got a new electric sander for Christmas, and I’m looking forward to putting it to work. Thanks for a great tutorial!!

    Reply

  9. Holy Cannoli Gina! I thought I’d done every paint technique known to man! I’m looking around my house trying to figure out which piece of furniture is getting a re-do with your technique! I LOVE it!
    So funny…the photo of you with 2 paint brushes just going at it! 🙂
    xo
    Robin

    Reply

  23. Seriously…..that is AMAZING!!!!!
    I might make something like that for my sunroom!! I could see a smaller version and a shelf on the bottom with baskets and my TV on top!!!
    So cute:):)

    Reply

  26. Wow! I love your table. I have one waiting to have something done with it, and this might be it. I like it a lot more than painting it straight white, especially because I do a lot of work on it and it’s going to get scuffed up, anyway. Thanks for hosting the party! I’m new here and it’s nice to fee welcome!

    Reply

  29. Umm, could someone please tell Gina I’m currently hiding from her……..just until she gets over that urge to slipcover her sofa. 🙂

    That turned out beautiful girl. Tell Mr. SCC he does (I)alright(I) with that building thang he’s got going on. Maybe I’ll hit him up to build my farmer’s carts afterall. Hey, I thought you were under that table earlier today with a dremel. Did I miss that part? Your color choices were great!

    How big is that table? Looks pretty long to me. That’s what I need in my workroom to replace all those little tables I have in a row with all my machines on them. Hmmmm, thinking…thinking. 🙂
    You’re gonna love it!

    Reply

  34. WOW!….WOW!!…..WOW!!!! It’s GORGEOUS!! I LOVE IT! I think it’s a FANTASTIC tutorial too!! One that I would LOVE to try someday!!

    Thanks for hosting! 🙂

    Reply

  46. Wow what a great tutorial! I have done this many different ways, but I like the way that you presented it. I can follow this more methodically than my approach.
    Your table looks great.
    Thanks for sharing.

    Reply

  58. oops–just saw that you want to know if it’s the first time you participated. It’s my second time. I just started blogging in November so needless to say I was thrilled by so many people stopping by from your site to mine. Thanks a million.

    BTY, my first post was my checkerboard floor. This week I’ve re-done my foyer with layering and with horizontal stripes as a background. Let me know what you think if you have a minute.
    Thanks for the bump.

    Kathy

    Reply

  65. LOVE LOVE LOVE the table!! I’m new – just found you tonight through Nester!
    So I have a question – I just went to Home Depot tonight and bought paint to redo my coffee table. It’s got a dark walnut stain on it now and I was going to do an antique white over it and make it look distressed.
    But I love your blue and white combo even better and it totally goes with my living room.
    BUT….my table has wrought iron legs. Do you think that would still look OK?
    Thanks! Love your blog and your etsy store!! 🙂

    Reply

  72. I am “Kerrie” as well as the last commenter! Funny, since it is a very uncommon spelling of the name…Anyway, I loved this tutorial, and just found this site. It’s right up my alley! I am now a loyal follower!

    Reply

  74. LOVE THIS PROJECT! So much so that I,ve made it my first ever DIY.

    I’ve been folliwng step by step. And have run into a roadblock: I’M in Canada and we don’t have the same brands of Ralph LAuren paint for the glaze…IS that glaze speical, or can you recommend something else?!?

    Thank you!!
    Cassandra

    Reply

  75. Great job, but I didn’t see what TYPE of paint you’re using: Latex, oil, nterior, exterior, flat, semi-gloss???
    Thanks!

    Reply

  76. Love this!!!!! I have a farmhouse table and chair set that I recently picked up….you’ve inspired me! Question….what do you put on top to protect it? Will beeswax protect it from water rings and spills? You are a rock star!

    Reply

  78. Hi there! first time here. I am a visual learner so i think pictures would have really helped me or a video. the table looks awesome but i was confused.

    Reply

  79. Hi there, this will be my first attempt in painting a shabby chick look on a dinning table. I am a little confused on whether to sand the table back or just paint over with chalk paint. I love the way you did the table, its beautiful.

    Reply

    • I usually paint it with chalk paint and then sand after to get a distressed finish. Just have fun with it 🙂

      Reply

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