Church Pew Makeover

A super cute church pew gets a dark & chippy makeover!

I can’t believe I’ve never shared my church pew here on the blog!  I got this pew at the Salvation Army Family Store last year.  I love it because it’s super small & cute!  It’s also really light so it’s easy to move around!

I actually had this pew in my entryway for a little while when I first got it.  Then we started making bed benches & they took its place, but it’s back…for now!






 

When I first got this pew, I attempted to give it a makeover using stain.  I quickly found out that the pew isn’t solid wood, so it can easily be refinished, even though I tried my best.  I was always disappointed in the way in turned out—the finish wasn’t even everywhere & it looked really blotchy.

It sat upstairs in our spare bedroom ever since.  Then, last week, I decided to give it a makeover!

Here are more pictures of what I was starting with:

I decided paint was my best option with this piece.  I started by painting the entire church pew black.  I found some paint on major clearance a while back & decided to use it on this piece.

After I painted the church pew black, I was super scared about how it would turn out.  The black was super dramatic & looked really bad when it was still wet.  I painted everything in the evening & then let it dry overnight without going back to look at it.

The next morning, I went to take a peek at the church pew.  It was still super dramatic, so I started a little distressing using my sanding sponge.  To my surprise, the paint easily came right off, allowing me to distress to the max!  By distressing this way, it also was very forgiving on a lot of the spots that didn’t cover so well when I was painting.  I thought I was going to have to do multiple coats & then distress, but one coat of paint was enough!

Once I was satisfied with the distressed look, I had to bring it upstairs to put in our entryway.  It was just too beautiful to stay in the basement!

Now I want to rearrange the entryway a little bit so the church pew goes with everything a little better!

It’s amazing how an old piece can get a new life with just a little bit of paint!