Restoring a Furniture Restoration

So, quite some time ago I upcycled an old blanket box. It was a big, bold, boho furniture restoration project. I loved it! In fact, I made a video about it back in July last year:

Then it sat in the workshop for nearly a year and a half, collecting dust and taking up room.

So, it was time to take action. One of the (many) good things about WoodUbend mouldings is that when properly adhered to a surface they’ll stay there – they won’t pop off after a while like some lesser quality furniture appliques. In fact, the only way the WoodUbend mouldings are going to come off is if you want to take them off! So, the first stage of this re-restoration was to remove the mouldings.

It’s quite simple really, heat up the mouldings with a heat gun or hair dryer and when warmed slide a paint scraper underneath and pry off the moulding. Generally you’ll take some of the paint away with the moulding, this wasn’t a problem in this case as it was going to be a complete furniture restoration – not just a facelift.

With all the mouldings safely prised off, the whole blanket box was sanded back and painted with a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Caviar. Now the furniture restoration could begin in earnest!

First up was to apply the new 3rd generation WoodUbend mouldings to the front of the box – or at least some of them. A couple of 1418 bendable wood mouldings were adhered to the drawers on the front and the new style 519 angel decorative moulding took up centre stage. Finally, the TR0012 flexible wood trim was used to partially frame the front.

When planning your projects, remember that all of the WoodUbend trims are 2.1m in length – you get plenty of bang for your buck with the trims.

Not heard about the third generation mouldings? Read about them here.

Once the mouldings were adhered, it was time to stipple a coat of Black Carbon Posh Chalk Metallic Paste, the Metallic Pastes are very similar to a modelling paste – just with a bit of extra Posh Chalkness. They’re highly pigmented, scented with essential oils and (importantly) water based. This means that you can easily change the consistency from a thick paste to a wash just by spritzing a little water on. As we already had our coat of Caviar on so we weren’t looking to coat the entire surface, just add some texture and depth – so no watering down needed!

A benefit of using the Metallic Pastes, is that they’re incredibly fast drying, this means no waiting around and you can carry on with your project. The next step was to lightly apply some of the brand new Radiant Silver Posh Chalk Precious Metallic Paste. Like the original Posh Chalk Metallic Pastes, the Precious Pastes are water based, what separates them is that they are more brilliant in colour, more vibrant.

A light touch was key at this point in the furniture restoration project, the pastes are very highly pigmented and we only wanted a subtle, smoky hint of silver. That being said the pastes are water based, so if the application of the paste was a little heavy in one area – it’s easy to paint over and start again!

Pre-painting bendable wood

It was time to mix up some Posh Chalk Pigments, the end goal for this project was a masculine, steampunk inspired styling. With this in mind, copper was the perfect colour to complement the foggy, stippling we’d created on the front. A relatively thick consistency of the Copper Pigments were mixed up, this ensured that we’d only need one coat of the lustrous, metallic, pigments.

It did, however, take a steady hand. There’s a lot of complex styling on the decorative mouldings, especially the 1418 mouldings on the drawers. A small brush and a calm hand was needed to paint the mouldings and not mess up all the work which has gone onto creating the foggy effect on the blanket box.

With this in mind, before we warmed up the 1206 angel wing mouldings to apply to the feet we gave them a generous coating of the Copper Pigments. If you’re using a flexible coating, WoodUbend mouldings can be pre-painted before heating and bending – all of the Posh Chalk products can be used to pre-paint your bendable wood decorative mouldings.

If you’d like to learn a little more about how to mix up Posh Chalk Pigments, check out our handy FAQ section.

With the leftover Copper pigments, we dry brushed the popular flexible trim TR124 which featured on this piece during its first furniture restoration.

Onto the sides, the furniture restoration forged ahead. The foggy texture was recreated using the Posh Pastes. This time, all of the mouldings were pre-painted with the Copper Pigments – saving an inordinate amount of time!

Speaking of time, the focal point of the sides were the incredibly intricate 2037 bendable wood stopwatch applique. On either side these were flanked by the decorative trim, TR50a.

A relative of the small wings which adorned the feet on the front were put to use on the side. The larger 1207 wing mouldings made up the top of the frame, completing the steampunk inspired furniture restoration on the body of the blanket box.

All that was needed was to finish off the lid. As with the painting of the mouldings, a thicker consistency of the copper pigments was mixed up and a coat was applied to the top. To ensure a great finish, the final brush strokes all went in the same direction – sometimes it’s the little things!

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