Drab to fab furniture painting class re-cap

For years, I have been wanting to take the drab to fab furniture painting class from my friend Mandi

at Pernsnickety's Awesomeness Emporium, but my schedule has always been too full to fit it in.

Thankfully, this past weekend, I had a free afternoon and Mandi had an open spot in a normally full oversold class.

I love the look of painted furniture and am always amazed at what people can do with a coat or two of paint.

The magic is in final steps be it glazing, waxing or distressing, and I was there to learn the magic!

Under strict instructions to bring in a furniture piece without spindles and no larger than 30", I found one of the only tables in my whole house that I haven't painted yet.

We bought this end table when we bought our first house and had a formal living room to fill.

In our new house, the set has been broken up and moved around and this end table currently resides in our bonus room.

Here are the before and after pictures of my painted piece.

But let me not get ahead of myself!

The drab to fab class meets in the cutest greenhouse work area in Sumner just down the street from Mandi's fantastic shop.

 I met the group of lovely ladies {and one gentleman} and we marched our pieces into our work space where we ooh'd and ah'd at the possibilities of the furniture pieces we brought in and talked about the colors we thought we were going to transform our drab unpainted {and some already painted} pieces to.

Some of the class participants were wanting to learn how to paint furniture for themselves, others were learning how to paint furniture so they could make it into a business for themselves.

Mandi informed us that there would be no white paint, and my heart did a little jump.

While I love the look of turquoise dressers and hot pink step stools, my house is very traditional and neutral.

I was still planning on using my end table, so I knew I needed to stick with something neutral.

Thankfully, I found a cream called Limoge that I loved!

Speaking of paint, Mandi carries a clay based paint from American Paint Company in her shop.

You can buy it directly from her at her shop

 {Persnickety's Awesomenss Emporium in downtown Sumner, WA}

or find a retailer near you.

The first thing we did in the drab to fab class was to turn our furniture items upside down.

I had never thought of doing this before and it is genius!

What a great way to get all of the "hard parts" before moving on to the top.

While you don't need to sand your work piece when you are working with clay paint, you can, and since I had a glossy factory piece that wasn't antique, I took a second to sand it down.

I painted my first layer on my end table and was ready to turn it over and wait for the paint to dry before my second coat.

It was fun to look around at the progress that was being made on the other students pieces.

Once both coats were on and dry, we were ready for the fun part!

Mandi used this bordello painted end table as an example for how to apply dark wax.

She's using a clear wax to take off some of the dark wax and then coating the rest of the table.

While I was hearing suggestions from the peanut gallery on ways to spruce up my boring cream colored table, Mandi offered up the suggestion of only painting the legs with a metallic glaze.

I was intrigued by the idea, and to be honest, I have never seen anything Mandi has done and not liked it,

so I was willing to take her suggestion.

Each of the techniques look a little scary going on, but never fear!

With a very wet rag, the glaze wipes right off and leaves only a trace that it was ever there!

 Mandi only did one of the legs and then I did the rest.

There is a learning curve so as I was learning, I was more aggressive than Mandi was, and ended up with a darker finish and taking off some of the paint, but in the many times I have painted furniture, it ended up being a happy accident.

I actually love the result!

I'm glad I took the risk.

Since I was busy painting my own piece, I didn't get around to the other projects to get a final shot, 

but as I was reviewing my pictures, I was happy to find that I did manage to snap a before and after of this gem!

Isn't that table so much better looking than it was before?

I learned a ton and I was so thankful that I was able to take the class from Mandi. There is so much to learn about painting furniture. It isn't just about slapping a coat of paint on! If you are local, and interested in taking Mandi's next drab to fab class,  head on over to her facebook page for more information. The class is on February 22 from 11:30-3:30.