I've always wanted to do an nice satin-y Pottery Barn finish on furniture, but I've been waiting for the right opportunity to do it. My best friend picked up a couple of dressers from a neighbor for $50 combined! Awesome deal right?! She brought them to me and specifically asked for the Pottery Barn finish she heard about from her mom who is a "Pin-head". I knew exactly what she was talking about since I had pinned the same web site on how to do this particular finish. Here's the awesome site I went to at Just a Girl.
My adventure began shopping for the Benjamin Moore paint which apparently can only be found at Ace Hardware out here. Unfortunately, they don't sell this product anymore, then I realized the posted tutorial was over 2 years ago! So I decided to improvise. The four things that stick out to me that makes this paint amazing is LATEX, LOW LUSTER, INTERIOR, and ENAMEL. So I headed back to Home Depot (my personal go to) and searched for the next best thing and found my SUPERSTARS for the project.
Product 1: Zinsser Cover Stain, Oil-based (which means it reeks!) Primer (This is tintable!)
Product 2: Behr Premium Plus Ultra, Interior Satin Enamel, Deep Base in Forever Black
If you can find the Benjamin Moore product I'm sure it will do fine, but I found this product as effective and $10 less.
Before
After!
Things I would do next time:
- Tint the primer! I could have saved doing 3 coats of black if the primer wasn't white. Although I got away with one quart each for the whole project, tinted primer would have been a time saver.
- I would have stuck with 2 hole handles as opposed to going to one. The hardware was supplied for me by my BFF so I made it work the best I could. I love the knobs, but the holes left behind are always hard to completely eliminate. If I every perfect this trick, I'll definitely let you know.
Tips I will stick with:
- Use a foam roller and foam brushes. It really helped with keeping the coats even and consistent.
- Use a strong degreaser to prep the wood. Definitely stick with this if you're not going to sand a piece before you work on it.
- Make sure your paint is drying in a room with the right temperature and for the appropriate time. It didn't happen on this project, but it's always a good tip to stick with. Every paint can has suggested room temperatures and dry times. As long as you stick with them you won't run into problems that will make you have to back track on your project.
Good luck if this motivates you enough to do it on your furniture. Send me a message if you have and questions or send me pics of your finished product!
Linking to:
Remodelaholic
Excellent! They look so sleek and updated now!
ReplyDeleteHi Kristi, oh my gosh, they look fabulous. You would hardly think they were the same pieces of furniture. I would have those in my home any day. You did a wonderful job. Thanks for sharing. I have recently found your blog and am now following you, and will visit often. Please stop by my blog and perhaps you would like to follow me also. Have a wonderful day. Hugs, Chris
ReplyDeletehttp://chelencarter-retiredandlovingit.blogspot.com/
Love this, Kristi! You did a great job!! I know how much work goes into dressers, love the outcome. I stick with distressed so I can be lazy about covering it, heehee! (:
ReplyDeleteps: THANKS for linking up with us!! XO
ReplyDeleteI was wondering how to get that PB finish myself! We rearranged a ton of furniture today so I was thinking I could paint some of it when the weather warms up. The dressers look night and day different from the ones you bought! So pretty!
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful finish these have! I'm your newest follower from miss mustard seed-stop by for a visit!
ReplyDeleteWOW!!!
ReplyDeleteAmazing transformation... love the color choice. Just my style! ;)
Featuring this today.. Hope you can come by for the Party!
Thanks,
Angie from A Little Inspiration
So I am in the midst of finishing my job, following the same blog entry. I found reassuring that you use BEHR. I am using mdf panels from HD for a custom made up shelf. After my second hand it seems that the paint is well settle and nice color but is not the smooth finish that I was hoping from PB :( I wonder if I need to sand it down after I paint it, or I just don't know how to paint with a roller :(. The PB suff looks like it was dip on paint and the left to dry
ReplyDelete@Gunfus - I'm sorry it's not turning out for you as well as you want. Make sure that you use a high density foam roller and touch up with a Styrofoam brush as well. Always let your coats dry completely before adding your next coat. If those don't work, then definitely sand between coats. I just did this again on another piece and found that I needed to sand some areas to maintain it's smoothness. I hope you found this helpful. Thanks for stopping by!
ReplyDeleteOk I got it now! I sand it down with a 400 after the second coat clean it from any debris and painted one last third coat. And it looks like I wanted it with as smooth finish. I couldnt wait to put it up so I waited like an hour or so and put it up, the paint was still a it fresh :)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the tutorial, the 'after' is beautiful! Is the bedroom set real wood? Also, could you use the same products to paint the PB 'Antique White' finish?
ReplyDeleteYes, the bedroom set is real wood. You can do this in white but to get the antique look, you'd need to use a glazing technique to get just the right coloring. Sounds like a good future project for me. Thanks for the questions!
ReplyDeleteDid you have to us a sealer on top of the paint? Or did you just do 1. Primer 2. Paint ?
ReplyDeleteLove the finished product!!!