How To Paint Furniture: Stenciling

Today I'm showing you one of my favorite diy furniture makeovers. This was an old wooden vanity table and stool that I found on Craigslist for $10. I painted it with my homemade chalk paint, changed the hardware, reupholstered it, stenciled it, and added a spray-painted mirror hung above it. This was the finished result: 

Basically, I did everything you could possibly do to turn an outdated thrify find into something snazzy. And all for under $20 total.

This was the first piece of furniture I ever stenciled. I would usually just paint or refinish a piece, but with this small vanity table, I decided to try something different. 

I painted the entire table (using Behr Creamy White converted into chalk paint) and then stenciled a lattice design using gold metallic paint. I forgot to snap a before picture (this was done before my blogging days), so just imagine a knotty-pine-nightmare and you'll have a good idea of what this used to look like before a coat of white paint.

And then there's the awesome rose-upholstery.

I decided to replace that with some neutral material.

Here's some details in case you'd like to try this at home.

Supplies:

1. Upholstery fabric of your choice (I used about 1/3 of a yard.)

2. trim (optional)

3. Staple gun & staples

4. scissors

5. screw driver

6. hot glue gun & hot glue sticks

7. painter's tape

8. metallic paint for stencil (or color of your choice)

9. stencil

10. paintbrush or roller

(and of course the paint to paint the whole vanity & stool if yours is also a wooden monstrosity)

PART I: UPHOLSTERY

To reupholster the stool, you first have to remove the top cushion from the base of the stool. It's usually screwed on and a simple screwdriver will do the trick.

 Next, separate the cushion from the base and place the cushion on your fabric. Make sure the side of the fabric you want to show is facing the floor. Like this:

 Make sure there is enough fabric on each side to wrap over the edge. Staple around all four sides, leaving just the four corners unstapled.

Once your cushion looks like the above picture, you are ready to finish the corners. To make the corners look as smooth as possible, I cut the majority of the fabric off of the corner and leave just a little strip of fabric remaining. Then, I pull the strip as far as I can towards the middle and staple it securely to the wooden bottom. It should look something like this once the corners are finished:

Now, you are ready to reattach the cushion to the base! I just poked around for the original holes and then matched them up with the holes on the base. Then simply screw the original screws back in.

Voila! Your stool is now upholstered with pretty new fabric!

Now, to make your stool look nice, I think it is best to use some trim to cover the gap between the base and cushion. I purchased 2 yards of trim from Hobby Lobby for $4 total. You simply start at one corner and hot glue it around the edges.

and then you will have something that looks like this.

PART II: STENCIL THE TABLE

I found this 'Iron Lattice' wall stencil at Hobby Lobby.

Take the stencil and tape it where you want it on the first half of the table (with your blue painter's tape).

Next, dip your roller in your paint choice
 and paint over the the part covered by the stencil. Go light on the paint so that it doesn't seep under the stencil. I rolled my roller over a paper towel a few times before I started.

While the paint is still wet, remove the tape and the stencil. It should look like this:

Next, match up the stencil and repeat on the opposite side. Again, remove the stencil and you will have this:

And you're done!

 If you want to add a mirror, you can be cheap like me and find a thrift store mirror with a decent frame and spray paint it. This one was originally dark wood and I simply painted it gold.

I think it looks so great in the bedroom. Almost everything in this bedroom came from a thrift store and has been repurposed.

one last close-up!

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Want more easy DIY Ideas? Check out my top 10 here.