French Provincial Makeover!

French Provincial furniture is a beautiful style and we found this Buffet in beautiful condition with four layers of paint but it was no match for our tools and determination! Join us as we take you through our makeover journey. Let's jump in with some "Before" photos!

Inspection: If you look closely you'll see the top left drawer is missing a piece of trim. (The trim on the right side.) We'll show you how we fix that.

More inspection: Overall great shape. No weird smells, or serious structural damage, everything was a cosmetic upgrade.

The most recent color of black appeared to be spray painted on, like with a rattle can of paint. You'll see how we came to that conclusion in the the photo below.

Stripping and Sanding: Now let's share some sanding photos, this was definitely a project that needed a lot of stripping and sanding. But, thanks to my SurfPrep sander I was able to make 'quick work' out of sanding. And by 'quick work' I mean, not having to slather this entire buffet with stripping chemicals, wrapping it all in plastic and waiting 24 hours to then scrape off, and scrub with mineral spirits. Would you believe it if I told you that with my SurfPrep sander, the top took about 18 minutes to clear off? The best parts? No mess, no dust, no swirl marks AND I can sand over all of the details without the sander flattening it. It's all true. I waited years to get this sander and I love it! (And no I'm not sponsored by them, I just love it!)

After all was said and done, I counted 4 different colors of paint on this buffet!!

Now it was time to clean it all up. I used my trusty Krud Kutter and water method. Visit this blog post for that information.

Trim: Once it was stripped and cleaned, then it was time to focus on the drawer with the missing trim!

To create a new piece of trim, I needed to make a mould of the matching trim piece on the opposite side of the drawer front. I did that by putting a light layer of petroleum jelly on top of the trim work, then slathered hot glue over the top of it.

**Don't worry about the petroleum jelly on the furniture, the Krud Kutter will clean it up!**

Once the hot glue cooled, I was able to remove it from the drawer front. This became my my mould. I then put another light layer of petroleum jelly in the mould and then filled it with auto bondo, found at Home Depot. Follow their instructions and voila-- a trim piece came out!

I had to work on it a bit, but once I sanded it to a satisfactory size/design I then primed it and attached it with wood glue. You'll notice the way the new trim piece doesn't quite fill the corners and there were a few imperfections. So, I decided to go over the trim piece (once attached) with another layer of bondo. After that cured, I sanded and shaped with my Dremmel tool.

VOILA! Trim piece duplicated and replaced! Now it was time to primer the entire buffet to ready it for paint.

Priming: Everything has been stripped, sanded, and cleaned so now it's time to create our blank canvas! After everything is primed, it's time to once again sand down and ready for paint. Doesn't it look totally different?!

Paint: We used Annie Sloan's Chicago Gray for the base and her Graphite color for the top, a nice contrast.

Sealing: Three layers of Chicago Gray paint later, we can sand once again, then seal it up! We use our absolute favorite High Performance Top Coat by General Finishes in Flat. Once sealed, we started to add depth with glaze.

Glazing: The glaze used here is Valspar's Antiquing Glaze. I absolutely love it as it can completely transform an entire piece.

Finishing the top: We painted the top in Annie Sloan's Graphite, sealed it, and then used Pitch Black glaze by General Finishes. This glaze gave the top some added dimension. We finish sanded between these layers as well. The finish sanding helps the entire finish feel more smooth than say just painting and sealing alone.

Ready for the final photos? Here we go!

What a transformation! The curves are just delightful on this piece and we were so happy with how it turned out. What's your favorite part of this piece?

---

If you found this post helpful, please share with others. Thanks!