Projects

The decor of Marisa's room, or I should say the girls' room, is vintage inspired. I mainly like to copy Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic looks. I LOVE her style. I am not quite there yet as far as how I want their room to look, but that takes time, right? So for right now, my next step in making their room more complete is to make their dresser/bookcase/desk more distressed, weathered, antique looking. When we first got married Tim had this piece of furniture growing up that was going to be ours and just by taking one look at it I didn't want it. It was an ugly wood color and it was ugly. haha But the idea came to me that I can paint it white and use it in Marisa's room. I wish I had a before picture, but here is the after picture.


It looks great and it has been a lovely free addition to her room, but now I'm a little sick of it. It looks too Pottery Barn-ish, too white, and too clean cut to me. I want vintage. So with much time to think and search and gain inspiration of what I want their room to look like, I now want to paint it like a provence blue and distress/weather it so some white shows through and even create some dark spots on the edges. Here is my inspiration for her bookcase...










Now I know the furniture doesn't have unique antique curves or edges like my inspirational photos, but I think I can make it look alright.

Which brings me to my next project...


I found this wooden rocking chair at a garage sale. Ugly, I know, but I bought it knowing that I wanted to take on the challenge to paint it black and give it a distressed look.

So, my question to you all, where do I begin? I mainly have concerns on where to begin for the bookcase and how to go about the whole project. The rocking chair shouldn't be that hard. Does anyone have any experience in this, any great advice, any great references? From my previous experience on painting and from quick current research all I can find is....

Sand - Clean - Prime - Sand - Paint - Seal - Distress

Is that it? Is this the order? I can see how it would work for the rocking chair, but maybe not the bookcase. How do I make sure the white will show through the blue in a few spots? Just by sanding some more? And how do I get those dark edges? Or is it even possible? I want to make sure I do it right so I would love ANY help!