Before & After: This Armoire Gets a Major Makeunder

published Nov 11, 2013

We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.

When Paul and Erin found this antique armoire on Craigslist, they knew they had to save it from its current state of Shabby Chic hell. And rescue it they did.

(Image credit: Erin Simpson)

From Paul:

Shabby Chic is all the rage, take a beautiful piece of antique furniture and slather it in latex paint, then rub some of that paint off to make it look antique. In other words, take something that looks like an antique, cover up all the real signs of age and then make it artificially look antique. Still not make sense? Don’t worry, it doesn’t make sense to me either.

First they stripped off the latex paint. Says Paul, “as you can see in the before, we couldn’t even wait to take the picture before we started removing the paint.” Because they love antique furniture for its character, they decided not to take the wood all the way down and repair all the imperfections, but instead to leave it the way it was, minus the Shabby Chic. Finally, they added a couple coats of boiled linseed oil, followed by several coats of polyurethane.