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.

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.

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.