Crackle Effect, Part 2

As I wrote in Crackle Effect, Part 1, crackling furniture is a big fat pain. Briefly, you paint a top coat, put on a crackle medium, and then, if done right, you put on a top coat that will "crack" and allow the base coat to show through these cracks. Sounds easy, but the top coat cracks quickly, so you only have a minute or so to get that top coat on before it gets clumpy and instead of pretty cracks, you often get a clumpy mess. If you mess up, you cannot just scrap off that top coat, you have to get rid of everything and start again with the base coat. Believe me, I know from experience.

After using glue as a crackle medium and not liking the effects, I decided to revisit a true crackle medium. I am cheaper than cheap, so instead of going straight to Sherwin Williams to buy the product I had used ages ago when I first tried crackling, I headed to Lowes for the Valspar crackle medium. I was not happy with the effect. To quote my husband, it did not look aged, but camouflaged. He was right, the brown base coat showing through an off-white top coat looked like a confused giraffe, blotchy instead of pretty antique cracks. So I scraped/sanded it all off and made a trip to Sherwin Williams, which is what I should have done in the first place.

Rather than redo a whole piece of furniture, I got smart and tried it on just the shelf. I'd rather mess up one small part than the whole thing. The shelf turned out beautiful and the results I got on the whole shelf were great, so my advice on crackle is to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE before trying it on a piece of furniture, and to use good crackle.

Crackling is still not my favorite effect, I find it hard to avoid top-coat runs and clumps. And it is really hard, even when using high-quality paints, to get the top coat to cover the base coat fully. Not a big deal where it cracks, but where there are no cracks and the base coat show through the top coat, I personally think it looks weird. I've tried I second coat of top-coat, but it either covers up too much of the cracks, and you can tell the area has been "touched up", or it smears the crackled paint, creating lumps.

The pics I have with the narrative are in the order of the process. I do not have one of the complete shelf since a pic of the whole does not do it justice. But the pics are, in order, 1. FINISHED; 2. the shelf in its original state; 3. base coat; and 4. crackle coat.

Crackle Effect, Part 1

Crackling furniture is a big fat pain. The idea is to paint one color (base coat) and then paint a second color (top coat) over it, but have the top coat "crackle" so that the base coast shows through. It is a very aged look and incredibly cool if you can get it right. And that is the problem, getting it right. I have no problem putting the base coast on and applying the crackle. It is applying the top coat that can be a big nightmare. You have one shot to get the top coat on, and you literally have about a minute before the top coat starts to crackle. If you go too slow, the crackling top coat will smear all over the place, giving a lumpy, smeared look instead of a nice crackle finish. If you totally mess up, you have to redo the whole piece, which involves lots of scraping and sanding. Usually both the messed up crackle coat AND the nice even base coat comes off in this process, so you basically have to start all over again if you mess up the crackle coat. I will not go into how many times I have had to "start over".

The proprietor of Treasures asked me if I could crackle. I've attempted it in the past and found it frustrating, but I was ready to try it again if she thought it would be a popular look. Last time I crackled a piece of furniture, I had used Sherwin William's crackle medium. Around the time I did that piece of furniture, a couple of different people had told me you could crackle using glue, and since my SW medium had since dried up, I decided to try the glue method. A google search told me that any glue would work (I went with Elmer's school glue) with a hair dryer.

Like the standard crackle medium method, you do have to go fast, but I found the top coat did not smear nearly as much using glue as it did when I tried a crack medium. But the cracks were not quite the look I was going for. So while it was easier to avoid making gloppy mistakes, the crackle effect was less "aged" looking to me. So on my next crackle attempt I decided to go with a crackle medium instead of glue (see Crackle Effect, Part 2).

I should note that I did not take a "before" pic, or if I did, I cannot find it on my camera. The original shelf was a dark wood. The base is white, the top coat is a blue/grey.

Mirrors

A dresser I acquired came with two mirrors. I thought both mirrors looked weird mounted on this one piece of furniture, and just one mirror was too small for the dresser, so I painted the dresser separately and then decided to experiment with the mirrors. One I did with a gold finish, the other I did with an off-white crackle over the existing dark wood.

A Tale of Two Headboards

Headboards seem to be very popular with the consignment shop crowd. Anything I have painted black sells within 48 hours of being taken to a consignment store, so it was sort of easy to decide which color to paint these. And of course I have to distress to give them that special touch.

Black Distressed Bedroom Set

A found a huge set of furniture that included a king headboard, 2 side tables, an armoire/wardrobe, a dresser, and a mirror. The furniture is solid wood and super heavy. I tend to lean towards black and white painting, and something this "majestic" really needed a dark color. But with all the intricate woodwork, I thought distressing it would add a really neat look.
Because the furniture was so heavy, my husband and I removed the drawers and cabinet doors on all the pieces before getting them out of my moving van (aka, my minivan), so I did not make an effort to do great "before" pictures. You can see a "before" cabinet door in the background of the pic with the family working on other furniture. The finished headboard can also be seen in the background of this pic. There are also images of the "in-between" phase, where I finished the drawers, but yet to start on the actual wardrobe. I am not sure why I do not have a pic of the dresser with mirror.

"Pottery Barn Kids" Dollhouse Bookshelf

A friend of mine inherited this from one of her friends whose husband built is to mimic the Pottery Barn Kids dollhouse bookshelf. When I got it, it was in excellent shape, just needed new paint. It came to me all white, with pink trim along the windows. After looking online, I decided to copy the PBK model and make the roof and window trim green. The PKB version has actual cutouts for the windows. I think this model looks fine without that feature, so I painted the "window panes" a grey-blue for a little bit of contrast.

My mom is trying to convince me to keep this for my daughter. And while I love it, I have learned to just say no to keeping things I do not have room for in my already crowded house!

Wicker Dresser with Mirror, painted RED

This came to me with the original stain the color of the wicker. The iron work was gold. I wanted to paint the wood and the metal work black, but Allison, who runs the consignment store, convinced me to go with something different, so I went with red on the wood and oil-rubbed bronze on the metal. I think the red contrasts well with the wicker, but this piece has yet to sell, so I am thinking about redoing it in black.

Painted, Distressed, & Glazed Chest

Another find I wish I had taken "before" shots of. I fell in love with this piece at an estate sale. After paying for it, I realized the sides were completely warped from some sort of water damage. When I pointed it out to the seller, she said she hung a long doily over the top so that the sides were covered and you did not notice the damage. Not the look I was going for, I went home and brainstormed. What gave the dresser a neat shape were the way that the sides were partially recessed - basically each side was made of a thick frame, with a panel placed into groves of this frame. The "panels" were very thin pieces of wood, which is why they warped so easily when exposed to water. The panels had to be replaced.

Not being a woodworker, I used my creativity and took the back off the chest to gain easy access to the damaged wood. I then knocked out the damaged part with a hammer. I had some high-quality bead board sitting in my basement (don't ask). There was no way I could ever get replacement panels to fit exactly into those grooves, so I did not need to be exact in cutting the bead board for the replacement sides, which was a good thing since this was before I invested in a jigsaw. After managing to not cut off my fingers with the chainsaw (yes, really), I had two similar pieces of board that I mounted on the interior of the dresser. These new panels were an excellent fit, and to make them look like they were original, I filled in all crevices with high-quality caulk and putty. Really, you would have never known they were not part of the original design unless you took the whole thing apart.

This piece was small enough that I assumed it would go in a little girl's room or cutesy guest room, so I painted it off-white. But I cannot resist glazing bead board, so I ended up going with a dark brown glaze on top of the paint. I was dismayed that this piece sat for months on consignment. I get sentimentally attached to pieces, especially the ones I have to get creative with, and when they don't sell immediately, I get really sad. Silly, I know. I had a few pieces that had been sitting in consignment for months that I was going to repaint black, this being one of them. A salesperson at the consignment shop stopped me on this one saying it was too neat to be painted any other way and to be patient, it would sell. And it finally did last week.

Mirror & Dresser, Black distressed

I found a 4-piece set of furniture that consisted of a headboard, large dresser, side table, and mirror. This is the job where I learned not all furniture and paints are alike. For some reason I could not get the paint to adhere to this furniture. Even when I primed it with the 1-2-3 "it will stick to anything" primer, I still had problems with the paint peeling off. I literally painted these pieces 3 times. It was a good, but frustrating lesson. Expensive, quality paint is always worth it in the end.

UGA Themed Headboards

At one point the boys had matching headboards that got a little beat up. I remember someone telling me college-themed furniture sold well, so I painted these in red and black in honor of UGA (not my alma mater, but light blue and white would look silly).

Very Cool Find, Antique Cabinet

This is one of my great success stories, finding something for less than $10, and then selling it for over $150. Keep in mind this required a TON of work on my part as this there was a reason this vintage piece was priced so low. A whole chunk was missing from the top of one of the drawers and one of the interior shelves had been busted out.

Fixing the interior shelf was easy, I just needed a piece of wood similar in thickness to the shelf on the opposite side (thanks to a neighbor who let me dumpster dive multiple times while putting an addition onto her house), a tape measure, a jigsaw, and a sander. Once the proper piece was cut, nailing it in an covering the holes was easy.

The busted drawer was a whole other issue. I took the whole thing apart, and flipped the drawer face over, drilled new holes for the pulls, and put the drawer back together so that the busted part was now on the bottom. I thought if I distressed the whole piece, it would not matter that there was a little damage on the bottom of the bottom drawer; it would give it character. Turns out the damage was worse than I thought and was very obvious, even on the bottom side of the bottom drawer. After much brainstorming and a few trips to the hardware store, I finally figured out how to repair the drawer with a thin piece of wood that matched the size of the drawer front, attaching it with brackets on the back, and filling in all cracks. Once painted, you could not tell the drawer had ever been damaged. I had to reassemble the drawer again to make close properly, but the end result was a really cool piece.

I kept the original pulls in the original color since I thought they gave it a unique, vintage feel.

Another Antique Headboard/Footboard

Another antique headboard/footboard combo. Again I wanted to glaze it, but I have found people are not as into the glaze as I am. So I just painted it and distressed it. I think it is gorgeous and I have convinced myself it has not sold simply because it is a full, and most people don't want full sized beds. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

Antique Headboard and Footboard

I found this at a yard sale. What could have been a beautiful piece of furniture was ruined by a horrible lacquer job. It was lumpy and streaked. I sanded out the major imperfections and painted then distressed it. I planned on putting a dark brown glaze on top of the paint to catch the "imperfections" under the paint, but I was so pleased with the paint/distress job, that I decided to leave it as is.

Dresser Make Over

I wish I had a before pic of this one since it was U-G-L-Y!! It has 9-drawers, and they had to be put in a particular way, which they were not when I came across it at a thrift store. The crooked drawers and the HUGE gold pulls made it an eyesore, which explains why I paid $16 for it. You read right, $16. I painted it white, distressed it, and painted the original pulls. It sold the afternoon I took it into the consignment store.

Home Projects

I have painted pretty much every surface of my house.

My kitchen cabinets have been painted and glazed twice since I was unhappy with my original attempt.

I've also painted all of the bathroom cabinets.

My kitchen table is the original oak one that I had as a kid. I've painted it black at least three times. The first attempt was a mediocre job, so I did it again. The second attempt was beautiful, but I accidently painted the table shut, so when baby #3 got big enough to join us at the table, there was no way to open the table to add the extra leaf, so I had to paint it for a third time.

This table is paired with the six chairs from a Pier One dining room set (we still have the table, it is untouched and paired with leather parson's chairs in the dining room). Baby #1 liked to gnaw on wood, so these chairs had bite marks all over them. I painted the chairs a leather red, distressed them, then glazed them with a dark brown glaze. I think the red paired with black is beautiful, and goes well with the rest of the kitchen.

My next house project was painting all the trim and paneling. When the house was built in 1985, dark wood was the rage. Once I saw how much bigger the rooms looked in neighbor's houses with painted woodwork, I decided to do my own.

"Pottery Barn" Espresso Finish

I need to give props to Jennifer Hill of Creative Cabinets and Faux Finishes. I worked for Jenna until I got too big pregnant with baby #3. Jenna and Susan Fossum taught about 90% of what I know, the other 10% coming from lots of trial and error on my own. While working for them I was shown how to do this finish, which we dubbed "Pottery Barn Espresso".

This pine dresser came to me in great shape, with beautiful paint and stain work. The problem was with the color combo - a light stain showing the dated pine on top, and turquoise paint on bottom. I wanted to paint and distress, but to prevent the turquoise from showing through I would have to thoroughly strip and sand, a very messy and time consuming process. Since I had recently done two black dressers, I decided to shake things up a bit and go for this finish. I think the end result is very neat.

A Family That Works Together

I had a ton of trouble getting the paint to adhere to a set of furniture. The kids wanted to help me with it, so I put them to work.

Lane Love Chest

This is an original Lane Cedar Love Chest, made in the 1970's. It is a shame I do not have a picture of the inside since it is in new condition, with the original Lane warranty card stapled to the inside top of the chest.

I initially thought the chest was manufactured in the 1950's, but figured out from the serial number stamped on the bottom that it was most likely made in 1978, making it less "valuable" as is. The wood and hardware did make it a little dated.

To give it a more updated look, I carefully painted the original hardware with an oil-rubbed bronze finish. The exterior of the chest was painted black and then distressed. I did not touch the inside of the chest, so it still has the wonderful cedar finish making it ideal for storage.