Layering Paint for a Vintage Finish

1. I've got tips and tricks for Layering Paint for a Vintage Finish. My laundry room shelves started out as brand new 1x10 boards...and then I made them look funky and old to blend in with our vintage decor. I'm sharing the entire process below. I think yellow may be my new color over here in the new (old) house. I still love my aqua and red, but this fun yellow color seems to be popping up errrrr'where in this place. Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone here. Of course. I had to make that yellow a little less new-looking to fit in with my personal style. This painting technique isn't hard...it just involves lots of layering and several colors. 

When we ripped out the original cabinet in this space, we knew we wanted shelving or something similar in this space. The cabinet just wasn't really our thing...personally, we store things better on shelving and tend not to clutter them up as badly as we do cabinets. My husband had thought white shelving would be perfect. After living in this space for a bit (my office is in here, so I'm in here a lot), I thought adding some color would be fun. What other room can you add bright, yellow, crazy shelves? The laundry room (or "lauffice") as we call it is the perfect place to get a little wild and wooly with the decor. It's out of the way and not a huge crowd-drawer (who wants to hang out in the laundry room, y'all?). Perfect to cut loose with the paint brush. 

I actually wanted fun corbels, too, but they were really spendy, y'all. So, pretty shelves kind of took the place of vintage corbels. 

I started with just plain 1x10 boards that were cut to our size needs (which was 7' long).  
I did sand up the edges a bit to smooth them out.

I started with one layer of white chalk-style paint on each board. I have a very large, noticeable drip line on one of these...but since these boards were going to be so weathered, I really didn't care too much. I used a wax puck on all of the edges. I use these in probably every painting tutorial on this blog. I love wax pucks. They're made specifically for this purpose. After the first layer of paint is dry, you wipe them on places that you want the following layer of paint to not stick too well. Their waxiness makes a barrier that's hard for paint to adhere to. I don't rub them everywhere on a piece, just here and there for a random effect. 

These are the kind I like to buy here on Amazon. They last forever. I've been using them for three years and this is only the second one I've owned (and I paint a lot!). 

After the layer of random wax application, I randomly paint spots of more chalk-finish paint all over the board. I used a putty color for this, but it's totally up to you. You could grab colors from your decor for this, too. After this dries, use the wax puck again and rub it on some of the splotches you painted.

The other color I used for random spots was red. So basically, I started with white, then used two different colors randomly all over the board. Some of the red spots even went on top of the putty ones. After the red dried, I added even more wax.

Then I finished the painting with a full coat of yellow.

I used Annie Sloan's English Yellow Chalk Paint.

After the yellow dried, I took the boards out to the garage and used my sander with 100 grit paper to really rough them up. Above, you can see all of the colors popping through. Try to vary the pressure in different areas to let more of the bottom colors pop through in some areas and not in others.

I use a dark colored wax to really deepen this effect. Just use a dime-sized amount at a time in a 1x1' area to work the wax in with the brush. Wipe off any excess with a paper towel. 

Since the edges showed the most, I tried to get a lot of the extra paint colors there...as well as the wax puck wax. Then I sanded those areas a little extra to help those colors show through.  

Across from the laundry shelves and washer and dryer is my office space. I used the rest of my English Yellow paint over here on the back of the shelves to tie it all together. It was kind of an after-thought, but I'm pretty happy with how happy the shelves are. Since this paint actually went on the wall, I didn't do a funky finish (trust me, I thought really hard about it).
  

And here's what the whole space with the shelves looks like.
I think the grungy yellow is the perfect amount of vintage fun here.
Oh, and check out my tutorial for the SELF-SERVICE LAUNDERETTE signs here.

Would you like this finish anywhere in your home?

Neglect your chores like me and don't miss a thing:

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