How To Make Your Thrift Furniture Colorful And Bold

Do you want to add some fun to your home? You have to check out this amazing tutorial where I show you how to make your thrift furniture colorful and bold!

How To Make Your Thrift Furniture Colorful And Bold

Whether you are here because you want to paint your own piece or you are wanting to resell a piece, I have to scream this from the roof tops, there IS room for COLOR in your home!! Oftentimes people think they can’t put color in their home, but that is so untrue. Having even just one focus piece of color to bring the rest of your decor together will work. Blues, reds and oranges are always great colors to choose when you are just starting to dabble in color. So naturally we are going to do a piece with all of these shades!! These colors are extremely versatile and can truth fully go in any decor. IF you do it smart.

Let me SHOW you how! As always this post contains affiliate links to all the products you will need to retreat this look. I doesn’t cost you any money to use these links but helps support my small business and I do a happy dance anytime you do 🙂

What supplies do you need?

1. Florida Orange by Dixie Belle Paint

2. Honky Tonk Red by Dixie Belle Paint

3. Bunker Hill Blue by Dixie Belle Paint

4. The Gulf by Dixie Belle Paint

5. Bronze Gilding Wax

6. Gloss Clear Coat By Dixie Belle

7. 2- Premium Chip Brushes

8. Mini Synthetic Brush by Dixie BelleMixing Cup

9. Stir Stick

10. 000 steel wool

Getting You Thrift Furniture Ready

Guys I always preach PREP and this is no different! This piece did not have a shiny finish so I cleaned it really well with Dixie Belle’s White Lightening. You can see how I PREP my pieces here 👇🏻👇🏻

Trust The Process: Add The Color

Okay so when you are layering colors for the purpose of a wet distress later, things can get a little wild. You HAVE to trust me, and the process!! The first step in this process is to pick all the areas (usually raised) that you want your “under colors” to go. My under color is Honky Tonk Red, I just want small pops of this color showing through my base coat of Bunker Hill Blue.

Once your’ “under color” has dried, you need to seal it. When you seal it, it makes it easier to wet distress to the color under the solid base coat. As a result  you will not run into the problem of distressing down to the wood. If you don’t mind and want wood to show you can skip sealing, but if you want more color to show, seal it. I used the Dixie Belle Gloss Clear Coat to seal the red.

Laying Down A Solid Coat

After my Honky Tonk Red dried, I applied my solid “base coat”. This was Bunker Hill Blue. I applied two coats of this and allowed it to fully dry before moving to the next step.

Wet Distressing Your Thrift Furniture

For this step you are going to want a 000 to 00 steel wool pad. Spray the area that you want the “under color” to show through so it is wet, then gently rub on the base coat until the other color appears. If you do want to let some wood show pressure a little harder. Viola this is wet distressing. You can use this technique on anything not just for our peekaboo layered colors.

Let’s Color Wash!!

I love doing color wash! It adds a cool look and dimension to your thrift furniture! Just because you are getting thrift furniture doesn’t mean it has to stay looking sad and drab!! For this I took the color I wanted to wash over the base coat, in this case The Gulf. I watered it down to maybe a 1:1/2 mixture. So one part paint, half part water. This keeps the pigments but makes it easier to use as a wash. Once I made this a wash, I took my synthetic mini brush and gently brushed it over the areas I wanted to cover. I then took my paper towel and wiped it back. You can wet a paper towel if you want to pull more of the wash off, you can also add more layers if it isn’t enough. (Lucky for you I also did a video of this entire technique, which you can grab below :).

Color washing magic!!

Layering Colors

Okay so we also used Florida Orange for this thrift furniture!! How did we add it in and not make it look too over the top? A damp chip brush, a teeny tiny bit of paint, and a little flick of the wrist. Okay so for real I put a tiny bit of paint, and just rubbed the orange on. I even did little swirls to really rub it into the gulf wash. I muted the orange down but still kept enough contrast that it blends so beautifully.

Pulling It All Together

Okay the last and final step is to add gilding wax. I just wanted to add a tiny bit of shimmer to this piece. I used bronze gilding wax and put it randomly on the piece. The gilding wax was also used to shine up the hardware. Bling Bling!

Now I told you I did a video for you, so here you go.

Isn’t she pretty??!?!

Thanks for hanging out with me!! I would love to hear what you think about this!! Would you try this? What colors would you use?

XOXO