Distressing an old bedroom set

When you need to fill a 4000 square foot home with furniture and decor… let’s just say I didn’t have to go very far to find what I needed.  Furniture pieces I’ve had for many years have come in quite handy for our B&B.  (It’s like I always knew this was my destiny.)? This post is showing the steps I used for distressing an old bedroom set.

But first, the story.  You know there always has to be a story.  This one takes place in the Fall of ’81. Boo and I had only been married a few months.  I was working at an architectural firm in Harlingen and he was going back to school and working part time.  We didn’t have a whole lot of money so we were frugal with our spending.  One day when I came home from work, I knew he was at home.  I just couldn’t find him in our very small 2 bedroom apartment.  

When I went into our bedroom I noticed a body form and cowboy boots peeking out at the end of the bed.  Too busy to pay any attention to the bed, I pounced on what I thought was Boo. Nothing.  He was hiding in the closet but we laughed and laughed.  Finally noticing the new bedroom set. (That was his way of surprising me with his fake self laying in bed.) One of the things I love about this guy is that he’s super thoughtful, like this.  Of course I worried if we could afford it and so on.

Long story short, this had been our bedroom furniture for many years and served us very well up until 8 years ago when we thought it was time for a king size bed.  I couldn’t part with it for sentimental reasons, so I decided it was in desperate need of some fresh paint and a new look.

I started by removing the mirror off the dresser base and the hardware from the drawers. Then priming.  Something I’ve been doing A LOT of the last few weeks!  I mixed up some black chalk paint and once the primer was dry, I did three coats of the black paint on all the pieces before distressing by sanding it and sanding extra in areas I wanted to expose the wood beneath.  I finished each piece off with a coat of polyurethane.  The top part of the dresser was restrained in a darker gel stain so that it would stand out and bring out the wood floors in the room it was going into.

Like I don’t have anything else to do around here but projects!  I can always find time for those.

Look how pretty!!!

Notice the pretty distressing on the headboard?

I decided on putting back the old hardware just because and cause it’s old and looks good with the end result.

Distressing an old bedroom set

Here you can notice a little better how good the dresser top looks with the dark gel stain.  

I’m so pleased with how it turned out and it goes great in the Lasso room at the B&B.

I might or might not have laid on this bed for a short snooze after assembling and putting final touches~