Shabby Chic Painting Ideas

Distress with Sand Paper

• Achieving the antique feel of a shabby chic piece of furniture involves a little paint and a lot of patience. Paint your furniture with several thick coats of different colors of paint, all in pastel shades, drying thoroughly between paint layers. Paint a layer of soft white as the final coat, then let it dry. Distress the furniture with sandpaper. You will end up with a layered look that bespeaks years of use for each layer of paint you uncover.

Distress with Paint

• Try painting all of the furniture in a single room in different pastel colors. Try blue, green and pink for the chairs, and paint a table light yellow. Give the furniture an older, distressed look by applying strokes of gray paint sporadically throughout. Put a corner china cabinet in your dining room and paint it the same color as the walls so it looks like a built-in hutch.

Age with a Wash

• Make dissimilar pieces of furniture complement each other and seem older by using a wash technique to finish them. A wash is a semi-transparent final coat. Dilute any pastel color of paint and use a very wet brush to apply it to your furniture. Use the same diluted color for each piece of furniture in the room, even though the furniture may not be the same color. Though you may have different colors and styles of furniture, this will bring the furniture together by aging each piece the same amount.

French Molding on the Walls

• Give your walls a French feel by simulating molding with white paint. Paint the entire room white and let it dry. Use painter's tape to make rectangular molding designs with scalloped corners, and add some scalloped crown molding to the tops of the walls. Paint the walls in your desired pastel color, let dry, then remove the tape. The result will be a French-inspired shabby chic masterpiece.