Shabby Chic Treatment For Dining Room Sideboard

At first sight this oak dining room sideboard appeared a massive undertaking; massive being the operative word. Long, tall and heavy best described it. And with three drawers and three cupboards you’d expect some bulk. Fortunately we could remove the drawers and shelves. So two of us managed to move it and get it ready for its shabby chic treatment in Surrey Heath.

Working with oak is not a real problem of course. The wood is very fine grained so the occupational risk from splinters that we get with pine furniture isn’t there. Yes, oak can require more paint than pine…but that can be just a general rule. Because we don’t come across the staining that we uncover with old pine furniture.

We applied a primer coat of paint, a Johnstone’s paint, and then followed up with another water-based undercoat before we started on the main shabby chic coats. Three coats did the trick with this sideboard.

We used a Farrow & Ball off-white paint to achieve the depth of colour required. This colour rarely features in our top ten colours, but it’s an impressive fixture in the palette. Our client had supplied some smart new handles for the sideboard and these, when fitted, certainly complimented the new shabby chic colour scheme. You can always source good quality metal handles from ironmongery suppliers such as our local shop4handles in Ascot. We do recommend that you see the handles before you buy, not least to ensure all the essential fittings work! Of course, we can always make any adjustments if you do buy your new handles online.

Finally we gave the sideboard a light shabby chic effect with rough sandpaper, suggesting a degree of wear and tear. Two coats of neutral wax from Annie Sloan finished off the job.

This proved a satisfying makeover for a very solid piece of furniture.