Whitewash Table with Frugal Farmhouse Design

The other day, I somehow stumbled across Lori's amazing blog: Frugal Farmhouse Design and I'm so glad I did! She has amazing style and taste! When I saw this tutorial on how to mix paint to achieve a whitewash effect, I fell in love! I have been wanting to do something like this to a side table I have, but couldn't figure out exactly how to do it! I was beyond thrilled when Lori agreed to share this technique with our readers! Here's Lori!

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I have been playing and experimenting with paint this week. There are two things that I mix really well. One is paint the other is I can make a killer margarita. I had a custom order for a farm table that I needed to get done. The request was that the paint have shades of aqua and blues with a white wash - not to bright and make it look old and original like it has been on the farm table for 100 years. OK - I can do that

I used these great latex flat paint colors by

BENJAMIN MOORE

1.summer basket green

2. florida keys blue

3. navajo white

the table was made from an old pine farmhouse door that had yellow paint as the original finish

I painted the entire table with a quick coat of FLORIDA KEYS BLUE using a small paint roller, it does not have to be perfect or even (you will see why)

Next - mix up a ratio of approximately 70% water with 30% paint in you next color choice that you would like to layer on (paint should be the consistency of skim milk) I chose SUMMER BASKET GREEN because it was a nice compliment to the blue. Roll it on, right on top of the blue. Again it does not have to be perfect.

Once it is dry it was time for the white wash. Apply one more layer using the same watered down mixture of 70% water with 30% paint give or take a little. I chose NAVAJO WHITE to use as the last layer and to add the look of the white wash.

here is what the white wash looks like being rolled on

when the paint is dry give it a good overall sanding with 250 to 320 grit sand paper. I use an orbital sander. What this does is remove some of the white on the surface and expose the paint colors underneath plus it gives the table a nice overall distressed look.

you can see the original yellow paint as well as the pine wood peeking out

lastly I coated the table with a layer of acrylic to seal the finish

I know it sounds complicated, but the process went along at a pretty fast pace. Using the mini roller makes the paint go on super fast. Because of the sanding at the end, it really did not matter that the paint be perfectly applied. It actually looks better if you are a little messy.

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I love the way this turned out! Thanks Lori for sharing your tutorial with us!
Don't forget to go check out Lori's blog HERE!

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