Recently, we blogged
transforming your furniture with paint. Here's another finishing option that uses a photo. We've been considering this look since we saw a file cabinet that was given
a similar treatment by interior decorator
Mary McDonald.
You can use an old photograph or even a piece of wallpaper. Here, Flickr member Karen Breen-Bondie applied her photo to Ikea's Finnby console. For more details on how she did it, click here. Although we don't believe Ikea carries the Finnby any longer, we think the Grimle buffet would be a good substitute. We could also see this working well on a generic pine dresser. And, of course, on a file cabinet.
[photo and console by Karen Breen-Bondie, via her Flickr page]
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You read my mind about my Grimle.
view Doug's profile
I don't understand how you print the image? Should the image be a minimum of X pixals for quality?
view Deb's profile
Yes, I tried to Rasterbate a photo for my wall, and despite my efforts to follow instructions, I wound up with about 6 large, colored circles---aka pixels---per page. Very frustrating! Anybody know how to control the pixels?
view Aulaire's profile
F-ing fabulous. Love that.
view jenzoe's profile
This is my cabinet. I have downloaded the stand-alone version of Rasterbator but used blockposters.com for this application. While Rasterbator will make posters much larger than blockposters.com can (and let you use photo files larger than 1MB), I prefer blockposters.com because the images come out better in the end.
However, if you like the pixelated effect, Rasterbator is your program. Within Rasterbator, you have to adjust the pixel size (make it smaller than 10) but with blockposters.com, it makes the best possible image with the one you upload. I always use a 300 ppi image and to make the file size smaller than 1MB for blockposters.com, I make size adjustments within Photoshop by cropping or making the height and/or width size smaller.
If you want to make a pixelated version of a poster, here is some great inspiration for an IKEA Malm bed I found online last week.
Good luck!
view kbreenbo's profile
I really miss the Finnby console at Ikea. Wish they'd bring it back.
view lolax's profile
There's also the black and white drawing option like the one available at enzero. Here are some examples:
http://www.ennezero.it/images/valentina/vale_man.jpg
http://www.ennezero.it/images/valentina/metro/co4_a.jpg
http://www.ennezero.it/images/valentina/metro/rogeri/pgr62_a.jpg
view M2JL's profile
If I want to use wallpaper on furniture (like the doors of a cabinet) how would I go about doing that?
view sarahcarioca's profile
sarahcarioca,
I would suggest adding primer coat to your furniture, then using wallpaper glue for the wallpaper.
view kimg924's profile