vintage look furniture finish ~

Bluwaterstyle week continues on the home front, and today I’m sharing how we gave new life to 30 year-old pine furniture. The pine pieces have a vintage-look furniture finish now, with inspiration from Crate and Barrel and West Elm. Oh, and this was Bluwaterguy’s first hands-on furniture refinishing. It was touch-and-go for a while, but now he’s happy with the “finished” results. 🙂

We wanted to create a finish that was park weathered teak, and part bleached walnut ~ something you might see around an old marina dock or on a working boat. The 4 modular pieces came from Bluwaterguy’s mom ~ a 2-door cabinet, a 3-drawer chest, and 2 shelving units, that can be used individually or as a stacked unit ~ and they each weight a ton!

We liked a grey teak finish from Crate and Barrel. And inspired by a display of pallet crates with a blue drybrushed interior I spotted at West Elm, I thought that could be a way to add some subtle color too. So, we just had to figure out how to go from an old flat red stain to something grey/blue with dark graining detail. Easy peasy, right?.

So here’s where we started ~~~

1 ~ Inspiration pin board, because that’s the easy part.
2 ~ New hardware, because that’s the fun part!
3 ~ Sad, neglected furniture that was pressed into storage duty during the room reno.

Yes, we are really the people doing the work! And Bluwaterguy is all about that Ryobi drill!

Here’s the work in progress ~ for a long time. This project seemed to take FOREVER. Of course doing a multi-step process on 4 pieces with doors and drawers and interior color made for lots of hurry up and wait intervals.

1 ~ Bluwaterguy was all about the sander, when he wasn’t all about that drill. He took the old red stain off, down to bare wood! That was really the best way to kill the red color.
2 ~ I drybrushed the interior color (a blue midtone with highlights and lowlights) and we both stained and glazed with Rustoleum stain in Kona and Weathered Gray.
3 ~ Then we buffed on clear furniture wax and a coat of white wax from Miss Mustard Seed to soften and add sheen to the finish.

I tried to convince him to wear gloves. {Sigh.} When he finally realized he might be wearing this look for a long time, we agreed on gloves!

And finally ~ here’s the finished project! I went through about a dozen ideas for creating a top surface. Cut down old doors! Poured concrete slabs! Natural slate tiles! You get the idea ~ yep, another project. Then Bluwaterguy came home with a galvanized boot tray from Target, plopped it on top of one section, and suddenly it REALLY looked like something you might find on a dock at the marina. So we ordered 3 more trays, put them in place on top and called it done. We laughed and made up stories to go with our “vintage marina furniture”. 🙂

Here’s a look at the long section on the gallery wall. The 2-door cabinet piece is in the dormer nook in another part of the room. I’ll show the whole room {and the full-on room reno} in the next post.

This is a collected, personal space ~ family and travel photos, boating charts, souvenirs and repurposed furniture. Oh, and my craft space in another part of the room too. It’s my happy space.

Hope you’re enjoying bluwaterstyle home week, and come back to see the rest of the room.  I’m at a conference for the next few days, and I would not be surprised to find a new television in the room when I get back. Because you know that vintage-look furniture really needs a state of the art high-def television. At least that’s how Bluwaterguy views the world. Hey, it’s all good and it’s nice to just enjoy the room ~ it’s been a long time coming! See you back soon for the rest of the tour ~~~