Upcycling My Pine Furniture

Being the first-born child, I was lucky enough to have the bigger bedroom growing up. But, when I moved out the first thing my younger brother did was move himself into my bedroom. 

I'm blaming this on the fact I'm a girl, but wow I had a lot of stuff in there. A lot of stuff that did NOT fit into the box room my brother was previously living in, so it was a case of giving the room a whole makeover (and who doesn't love a makeover, right?!)

When you've moved out and you're paying bills elsewhere there just isn't the budget to be fully revamping your bedroom at home, so I decided to work with what I had. Hideous orange pine.

Inspired by the interior icon and Queen of clean Mrs Hinch I decided to go for a grey theme to my new bedroom, and add little touches of pink. 

Now this is a first time DIY/upcycling effort, so I wasn't about to go crazy with it, so I brought myself some Chalk Paint in the shade Dusty Morning and planned to trade my orange nightmare for something a little more bedroom-friendly. 

Here's how I did it:

Step one - Sanding

Sanding is SUPER important, because if you don't get your surface nice and clean, and smooth and shine-free your paint is not going to sit properly. All you need is some sandpaper that you can get for a couple of pounds in stores like B&M and just rub down the whole piece of furniture until the shine is gone. For the top of my dressing table I wanted to keep the wood finish but get rid of the orange, so we used an electric sander to get this down faster. After that just give it a little wash with some soapy water and leave it to dry. 

Step two - Painting

Okay, this is the fun part. Grab yourself a paintbrush and get painting! Make sure you are following the grain of the wood with your brush strokes to get the best look at the end, and don't be shy with the paint. The paint I used is touch dry in just half an hour (although you do have to wait four hours between coats) so it's super easy to see the finished look and if you missed a spot. 

For me, I like a solid finish so I did two coats of paint which gave a nice solid light grey look. 

Step three - Waxing

After waiting four more hours for your paint to dry it's time to finish the job. You want to make sure the paint holds and isn't easily marked, so grab yourself some furniture wax to coat your piece. Take a clean rag (I just cut up an old school shirt) and cover it into the wax. Then rub the newly painted wood in circular motions with the wax, making sure not to miss a spot. You will notice it changes colour ever so slightly. 

And voila! Your ugly orange pine is now a dreamy and tranquil grey masterpiece!