I used this beautiful picture of a fountain in Paris as a jumping-off point to paint several dressers with Sherwin-Williams latex paint.
Check out the video for the full tutorial. If you prefer, a transcript of the video follows below. I have also included a supply list with links to make it easy to find everything.
Supply List
You will need: Your furniture piece
Sherwin-Williams Parisian Patina, Captivate paint line, Flat (any paint line or sheen would work)
Sherwin-Williams Lounge Green, Emerald paint line, Matte (any paint line or sheen would work)
Paint Brush. I like Purdy brushes.
Transcript
I usually think of Paris as a warm gray but I love the idea of it being a patinated oxide oxidized copper um like some of the roofs or the metro sign or the fancy fountains in Paris and the name of the paint actually gave me the whole inspiration for the project and I love the idea.
Hey this is Kathleen from oldworldfarmhouse.com and today I am cleaning off some furniture that I got off Facebook Marketplace. So I’m mixing four tablespoons into two gallons of warm water. I got these two dressers and nightstand and a bed facebook marketplace for free and they are – they need – they got a really rough paint job with a lot of drips that need to be sanded off and they also kind of smell like maybe mouse pee. So the first step is just for me to take my Dirtex solution, it’s this pale yellow, the more Dirrtex you put in the darker it gets. This is the concentration, four tablespoons to two gallons of water, for furniture. I think it should be fine and I’m just going to wipe it down, all over inside and out. What this stuff is on here, something really gross, yes definitely some kind of animal pee, but the Dirtex should take care of it. Um, Dirtex is a little different from TSP and that they say explicitly on the box you do not have to rinse, whereas with TSP you’re always having to do a rinse. But um, I might go over this twice, because it’s pretty gross. Okay, while I’m out here I’m also going to take off all the hardware with a screwdriver.
Okay, so now we are standing the rough paint. There’s a very rough paint job with lots of marks right here with 60 grit paper. Okay we finally got these pieces cleaned up and we are ready to start painting. We are using Sherwin-Williams Parisian Patina and I’m probably going to do some accents in Lounge Green.
I’ve got one of my favorite helpers here, my daughter stirring the paint, and I’m just testing out from the lid with my Purdy trim brush, which is pretty much my favorite thing to paint with, and we’re gonna just get started painting upside down. I have painted this whole piece in Parisian Patina and now I am adding highlights with Lounge Green to give it that look like copper gets on a building where it’s oxidized all over green, and then in some areas it’s, you know, just a little greener like where it sticks out, like it’s elbows or something. So I have the – the barest minimum amount of paint on this brush like it’s – it’s so dry that I couldn’t possibly get it any drier and here’s my ridge and I’m just gonna – just the – the tiniest suggestion of more oxidation on the corners, even though I realize it’s obviously wood, so it’s ridiculous, the wood wouldn’t be oxidized, but the overall effect will be – will be cool, you’ll see. So yeah, it’s the teeniest bit of dry brushing, brush, brush.
Let’s see here I had to load up my brush again, and it wasn’t quite as optimally dry so I’ll probably just go and touch that up with my other brush to cover it maybe when it’s dry.
I really don’t want anything but the barest hint.
Today I am going to be waxing my pieces with Minwax Paste Finishing Wax in Natural. Waxwell brush, trusty brush, and I’m just rubbing this on. I – the paints I chose were very, uh, one of them is called Flat that’s the Captivate Parisian Patina in their Captivate which is their kind of, their budget paint line, and I got that in a flat, and then Lounge Green, which is this lighter green color here, is in the Emerald Matte paint so it’s very matte, and i think that rubbing it with the wax is going to give it a nice, that nice, you know, hand rubbed look. So again I’m just pressing and pushing it into the paint. I want to do a very, very thin layer. The Minwax furniture wax, um, is a good budget alternative to the Annie Sloan clear wax. It might have a slight more bit of yellow to it but I don’t really care about that. I’ve never really, I don’t think it’s noticeable and it’s ten dollars for one pound versus I can’t remember how much you get in a tin of Annie Sloan, um, slightly less and it’s – it’s slightly more, so it’s a very good product. But uh, I am just as, you know, I – I love going into Sherwin-Williams and being able to pick out any color and getting that kind of inspiration and knowing that I’m paying so much less. I don’t have to wait for it to come in the mail because I don’t have a stockist near me for Annie Sloan, sadly. Um, so yeah that’s what we’re doing, and then here’s the top. My little girl was helping me and she has run off. So you can see there how it – it is slightly yellow but when you rub it on. I – this will be the final step. I think that I will only wax these pieces once. They’re not going to be getting a lot of hard wear. If I was being very responsible I might wax the top twice because we might set – inevitably set glasses and things like that on there. And I am waxing over these handles. I copper leafed them and I am waxing over them to seal them. That way the copper leaf is not going to patinate as it ages. It’s going to stay bright.
And today I’m going to show you how to copper leaf drawer handles. I am going to copper leaf all of these metal drawer handles for my new french dressers and the first step is to paint all of them with size. Now this one I got on Amazon. Speedball Metal Leaf. I have used this so far on eight or nine handles and four clawfoot tub feet in my bathtub, and I still have quite a bit left. I just got a little whatever cheapo brush. You dip it in your size and then you paint all over and it looks kind of white. Some of these are half done already because I was leafing them and I ran out of copper leaf so now I’m going back. But it looks white. It’s kind of hard to see, because these handles are white, but when you paint it on, it’ll look white and then you go away and you wait 30 minutes or 45 minutes or so until it is completely clear and when you come back and it’s clear, it will feel sticky and that’s the point when you start to attach your leaf. This is copper leaf. You can do gold, brass, silver, there’s all different colors. It has dried nice and clear and it’s time to put on the copper leaf. I bought this from Amazon. It was, I think, eight bucks. Um, it’s, they come in all different price points and all different, uh numbers. This is one of the smaller uh, sets of leaf, and it comes like this. There’s a leaf and then there’s a piece of tissue paper in between each each leaf like that so what you do is you just, and you place it, whatever it is you’re leafing, wanting to leaf. And then you take a brush, you can buy a special brush, you know, made for copper leafing, that’s what this is. It’s kind of nice because they’re soft and that’s what they’re meant for, but if you just want to use like a little kids paintbrush or anything that’s soft yes, like, oh, my daughter’s right here off screen. This is just like a Crayola crayon brush. This would work fine because all you’re gonna do with it is just push gently you just you’re pushing it on to the size and the excess leaf, you know, you just kind of brush away, you brush it off. It comes off,
And then you have your, and this is a little part I missed, so I’m going to, I’m going to take this little bit and lay it on there and just again take my brush and push and then whatever isn’t directly stuck to some size it just comes – it comes right off and you can brush it away and use it on another, uh thing or you know if it’s too small, discard.
And here is the finished product. I did two dressers exactly the same way with the Parisian Patina and Lounge Green highlights and the copper leafed handles, and one nightstand and I’m painting the bed a totally different color for my son. So I’m very pleased with how this turned out and I think it does have a Parisian patina.