My Funtastically Good Life....: June 2011

Monday, June 27, 2011

IKEA Magically Turns Campaign

After checking out a bunch of DIY sites on how to create your own Campaign Furniture look, I found Littlegreennotebook's blog to be the most insightful on the subject she redid a couple vintage pieces that she found to look exactly like the beautiful green piece in the photo. As you know vintage furniture especially of that quality can be ridiculously over priced. And for those of us that don't have the money to even bother looking I figured I would share with you my version of the Campaign REDO. First off I have had my plain black IKEA cheapo dresser for about 4 years now and kept staring at it hoping maybe someday it would change. After browsing through some random blogs and magazines I decided upon Campaign style. I went to buy the brackets at Home Depot and found that all of them would cost me nearly $40 which is not alot of money but not the budget I had in mind.Also after checking the points that the brackets would be installed onto my dresser I realized the wood was an uneven surface, and that there would be no bracket mounting for me. But because I am always the type of person to figure out a different route to fixing a problem I thought maybe I could paint it to look Campaign-ish. So here is what I started with. 3 different size paint brushes. A handmade stencil (made from a thick expired Bed Bath and Beyond coupon) a sharpie, a pencil some liquid leaf craft paint, and the original brackets that didn't work.

After removing the knobs I used the pencil around my homemade stencil in all of the areas where the knobs were. After that I used the pencil and drew around the metal brackets as the stencil for the where my faux finish brackets would go. Next I used the liquid leaf brass finish paint and painted in the stenciled areas let this dry awhile between coats ( I did 2 coats) also the paint is watery thin so wipe the brush off thoroughly between dipping. After everything was dry I went back in with some black paint I had around the house and added what looks like screws or studs for the brackets to look more realistic. Then I touched up all the scratches from the last 4 years with the sharpie, let everything dry , put back on the hardware and VIOLA!