First furniture projects

So armed with Annie Sloan's two books, 6 cans of her chalk paint and two tins of her wax, I have embarked on several furniture projects inspired by her books.

First up is a relatively easy project - a small dressing table bought for £30 from a local junk shop.

The table isn't cleaned of the existing varnish.  Instead, it is just painted with a coat of "duck egg blue" paint, one coat being sufficient.  The white beading was done by marking the lines with masking tape and then painting over the gap left with "old white". 

After this picture was taken, the table was waxed with clear wax and then sanded down - this has given the piece a less uniform look.  Now all we need to do is buy a new knob for the drawer.  We figure the french project might require five such tables

The second project was a little more complex.  First our standard, orangey-coloured pine bookcase was painted with a country grey paint which was then rubbed down while still wet so only a fairly thin layer of paint remained.

Then I took strips of masking tape and attached them to the bookcase, then carefully teared down the middle of each strip leaving a rough edge one side.  I then painted a second coat just between the rough edges of the various strips of tape.

Just after painting between the strips of masking tape

Then when the paint was dry, I removed the masking tape leaving an irregular pattern of fully painted and thinly painted strip.  Overall, a very nice effect.

The back panel of the bookcase after the masking tape treatment.

As I write this, I still have to paint the the shelves of the bookcase the same way, then a coat of wax to protect it.  We are really very pleased with this.