Wanted a French Country theme in a guest bedroom - but on a VERY tight budget. So I heard my local Goodwill calling my name! I hope you enjoy the ideas I came up with and have as much fun creating your French Country retreat as I did!

When I'm making a bunch of accessories to decorate a room, I like to lay everything out on the garage floor on tarps and paint it all at once with a big roller, touching up with a smaller brush. Dresser, chair, trays, boards, etc etc. Saves painting time and time on cleanup.

Painted all items with a good primer (I use Kilz water based primer - blocks stain and rust and will stick to ANYTHING - even glass)

Then I put on a base coat of creamy french vanilla - yum - see instructions, shortcuts, and tips for painting in my other guides:

Trash to Treasure with Decals: Shabby Chic Home Decor

Easy Cheap Crackle Finishes: Shabby Chic Furniture

Confessions of a Lazy Painter: How To Paint Stuff QUICK

Top 10 Furniture Painting Shortcuts & Tips

Shabby Chic: How to Distress Painted Furniture

 

French Country Antique Dresser

Oh how I wish I would've taken a before photo of this dresser. It's hard to express how ugly it was - dark dark 70's stain, bright gold hardware - it was hard to use my imagination, but I could definitely see the potential.

On the dresser, after the basecoat of french vanilla I did a crackle finish on some parts. Then rubbed the entire piece in two different colors of gel stain, to give it an aged, patinized look. I rubbed it in with a rag, alternating the colors in about 12 inch irregular patches.

Gel stain works great for this, because it dries slowly so you can work with it until you have the look you like.

You'll get the hang of this technique pretty quickly - you just glop the gel stain on with one rag or a sponge brush, and then rag it off with a clean rag.

Try to clean more off in some places and leave some spots darker, and leave plenty in the nooks & crannies to accentuate the carving. This really brings out the details of a furniture piece.

 

Once that was dry, I added the decals for a hand painted look and got an instant french country masterpiece - for about $15! It looks like an expensive hand painted antique, and I've gotten so many compliments on it.

Here are some closeups of the "patina":

  

 

Rustic Topiary Plaques

I love the antique rustic look of these 3 pictures - made from scrap wood leftover from a shelf project!

    

For the 3 pictures, I started with 3 leftover pieces of scrap MDF plywood. MDF works great for these types of plaques because it doesn't warp.

All I did was prime, then paint the boards in a soft sage green color, and after that was dry, rubbed them with the same gel stain. I rubbed off more in the center and left a lot of stain on the edges. 

After that was dry, I applied one of the topiary decals to the center of each board. See my guide on tips for applying decals like a pro for details.

I stapled cut wire hangers (the kind you get from the dry cleaner) to the back for hanging.

 

Found the cute decorative fleur-de-lis tacks with hooks on the front at Michael's.

Saw a very similar item at Pierre Deux on sale for $495 - originally $695 - go there & search for "topiary" and you'll see it - I made mine first though - it's not a copy, just a happy coincidence.

Wooden Rose Sign

This old piece of fence board was the perfect solution for covering up a HORRIBLE air conditioning pipe running over the door in our guest room. (what was the previous owner thinking??)

It was painted with the french vanilla color, rubbed with the gel stain, and then yardlong rose decals were applied.

Much prettier than the previous owner's painted duct tape - ha ha!

Other Ideas:

I maxed out my pictures for this guide, but here are some other easy French Country tips:

Also gave 3 shabby rusty old Goodwill trays a similar facelift for another wall - similar to the 3 plaques above. I hang these on the wall with simple plastic stick-on-the-back hangers from the hardware dept. Then they can easily be taken down and used for carrying drinks, snacks, etc.

A black wrought iron garden wall basket holds towels

Lidded boxes covered in toile wallpaper made me a little less guilty about stealing storage space on one wall of the guestroom

Lamp shades covered in matching toile

Old world, oversize wrought iron candleholders

Potted herbs, lavender on the windowsill