Hi friends! I’m so excited to be sharing this make-over with y’all and I hope you truly enjoy it. I’m going to be including how I prepped for this makeover, the items used, the steps I took, and a full review on Fusion Mineral Paint.
But first…let’s talk about how I found this gorgeous piece and what I’ve learned over the years collecting. I literally scour Facebook marketplace just about every day for unique vintage items. At the time, I was actively looking for a hutch but then came across this beauty. I purchased her from a nice gentleman who actually refurbishes furniture, and he just didn’t want to paint this piece. Part of me wanted to keep this piece in it’s natural state because of that…butttttt the other side of me was screaming creamy white! So, I made the executive decision to paint it.
Here she was in here natural, vintage state:
So as I mentioned, I’ve learned a few things over the years with building new furniture and finding old furniture. The first thing, most things you buy ARE NOT real, solid wood. Even when some items say “solid wood” what they actually mean is that the piece is tiny pieces of wood glued together and sealed with essentially a fake top. AJ and I love our real, solid wood pieces, and this piece actually was a true vintage, wood piece.
For this project I partnered up with Fusion Mineral Paint for a collaboration, and let me tell you folks: Hands down, my FAVORITE paint that I have used. And I genuinely mean that. I’m not at an expert level with this kind of thing, but Fusion made me feel like I was. But before we get into my review, let’s hear a bit more about what I did to prep for starting this project.
First thing I did, which Fusion Mineral Paint did recommend to me and I will recommend to you, I went onto Youtube and watched their tutorials on how to use their paint. If I wouldn’t have done this, I truly don’t think my piece would have turned out the way it did. Here are a few of the videos that I watched, but that was because I was using these products (I also watched a few videos of other people who have used Fusion before):
Depending on the goal of your project you might need to watch some of their other tutorials, but these were some of the few that helped guide me on this project! This is another thing that is so great about Fusion Mineral Paint is that Jennylyn does these tutorials for everyone! Not only is this a great product, but the creator is wanting us to succeed with using the product.
Other research on the product from other users also lead me to fully understand that you need to clean your piece and clean it very well. If you don’t, it could cause the Fusion Mineral Paint to chip off down the road. I watched a few Youtube channels, and one reviewer was using Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner to clean her piece. It’s a great cleaner but it’s also great for the environment and has a pretty good smell. We needed to do a Home Depot run, so I just picked mine up there.
Now this part, was a bit of a process. I definitely took my time with this as well and really wanted to get rid of all that oil build up from years and years of this piece being touched (kinda gross, but true!). But before I started cleaning the piece I was sure to take off the hardware. I also ended up removing this back piece as it made things a bit easier.
I actually saved this cleaning process on my Instagram stories and they are saved within my DIY highlights if you wanted to see some specifics about this process.
Next was the sanding. I actually got some questions on why I was spending so much time cleaning if I was just going to sand the piece down. Well, to be honest everyone I watched (including Fusion Mineral Paint’s videos) all indicated that cleaning your piece was (if not the most) important part of your furniture project. This piece is extremely unique and I didn’t want to take any chances. In reality though, this step makes perfect sense. Why would you want to sand down your piece to get the “grit”, but then still have some oils underneath that. I chose to hand sand this piece instead of using a sander, and hand sanding only does so much.
A few things you might notice in the photos above: hardware is off, paper towels, and a piece of sandpaper meant for a sander. So one, I was not going to go out and buy new sandpaper or a sanding block when we had perfectly good sandpaper that’s used on our sander. You don’t need this exactly kind, but what is important it the grit. My piece needed some work so I chose a 180 grit, but most pieces probably only need 220 grit or higher. On the two big drawers that aren’t pictured, I actually used 80 grit because I wanted the visibility of those sanding marks (and I loved it!). Again for most of your pieces, you won’t need to press that hard while sanding. Just get a good sand to get any top coat that might be there.
Once you are done sanding, you must wipe down the piece with a damp paper towel (or a lint free rag). This part is also extremely important. You will have some dust from the sanding part, and this needs to be wiped away.
Next up, the fun part! Painting! I was so ready for this step because I was cleaning and sanding until about 9 PM Saturday night, but just wanted to start the painting process anyway. Sidenote: Yes I did this ALL in the kitchen. I would have froze my toush off out in the shop as it snowed all weekend here. So your home girl kept it inside and created one big mess in the kitchen.
Now onto the products, what did I decide to use? Well, if you’ve been around for a bit y’all know I love my cream color, so I went with Fusion Mineral Paint’s Raw Silk paint. It’s literally, like…gahhh, just AMAZING! I’m being dramatic I know but I really, really loved this color. It matches that purdy little piece that is behind the dresser in that photo right above this. And it just matches our home so well.
I will say, this was a dark piece so I did need two coats with a thick coat on the top. I’m usually a two coat paint person anyway, so I didn’t have any issues with this at all. Just lathered that beauty up with this gorgeous Raw Silk Color. Whether you are a neutral color person or not, Fusion Mineral Paint has so many colors I’m sure you’ll find a great fit for you. Check out their paint colors using the link below!
Another thing I love about their paint is how smooth it goes on. As I mentioned earlier, their paint made me feel like an expert. This is because their paint is more of a self-leveling paint. Now this doesn’t mean put gobs of paint on your piece, but the paint went on smoothly (also be sure to reference the above YouTube videos!). It didn’t take me long to get the first coat on and honestly by the time I finished the two small drawers, I could go back to my starting point and continue painting that second coat. I would just be sure your paint is dry before continuing onto a new coat.
The last few steps is where I really was able to get creative with how I wanted this piece to look. I definitely did not want a sleek all white piece, but instead I wanted to give some character to this little beauty. So I let the paint dry over night, and then I began to distress the piece all over. Basically wherever there was some sort of edge or mark, that’s where I focused on for my distressing.
I took the took big drawers and sanded them down another time with 80 grit. I know, what a rough piece of sandpaper to use on this old piece, but I think it actually brought it back to life! The sanded raw drawers, I think, are a huge part of what makes this piece so beautiful.
But before I get too far, I need to talk about the waxing. Fusion Mineral Paint sent me two different types of wax, the Ageing and the Clear wax. Once I had all of my distressing done, I wanted to go back and add in even more character with the Ageing wax. This took the vintage vibe to a whole other level in my opinion. It was easy to use and looked amazing! The greatest thing about this Ageing wax too, if you used too much you can simply take a paper towel and use the clear wax to buff it off! As you’ll hear in the YouTube video above on waxing, the clear will act essentially as an eraser for the Ageing wax.
To apply it, I just used my chalk paint brush because it’s what I had around the house. You can certainly use a different brush but try to not get the ones that shed really bad. So you just take the brush, dip it into the ageing wax, and apply! Then go back with a paper towel and buff away!
The last step I took was actually putting a layer of the clear wax over the top to act like another sealer for this piece. I normally would have gone over the whole piece with this, but Fusion Mineral Paint is so awesome that it actually already has a built-in top coat! Yet another reason to try out this amazing brand.
Then, she was finally done!
Here is a small gallery of the unedited photos so you all can see the true colors come through in those wood tones!
This project was truly one of the best ones yet! And I attribute most of that to the ease of using Fusion Mineral Paint. I mentioned above and I’ll say it again, I’m no expert when it comes to refurbishing furniture. I’ve only done a few pieces and this by far was the easiest one. I partnered with Fusion Mineral Paint on this project, but I will continue to use their products in the future for any furniture rehabs I might have. I highly, HIGHLY, recommend this product and you guys need to be sure to check out their page here:
Thank you all so much for tagging along with this fun DIY, and please send me any comments or questions that you have! I would be more than happy to answer them to help you create your own DIY dream!