Decorate your bedroom with distressed items for a vintage feel.
Distressed bedrooms aren't actually distressing. In fact, they often feel serene. The rustic charm of shabby chic furniture, combined with soft colors and fabrics, create an oasis of casual calm. Creating a distressed bedroom can be cathartic, as well. Distressing your furniture yourself could help make you as peaceful inside as your bedroom is outside.
Furniture
The key to distressed, or shabby chic, decor is the "chic" part of the phrase. Furniture pieces with elegant lines and interesting details stand up to distressed techniques better than plain furniture with bland details. Look for scalloped edges, flowing curves and elegantly turned furniture legs and bed posts. Flea markets and thrift shops often carry old, tired-looking pieces of furniture with very beautiful lines. Once painted, the shape of the furniture stands out and stands up to being distressed.
Distressing Techniques
Properly distressed furniture starts with an immaculate paint job. Sanding, priming and painting means the difference between charmingly vintage furniture and cheap-looking pieces. There are several ways to distress your freshly painted furniture. Sanding the corners, hitting the pieces with hammers and chains and gouging not only make the pieces look worn and loved, but they also relieve stress.
Crackle finish paint is easier on the joints than physical distressing. It starts with a dark coat of paint with a clear coat of crackle finish over it. A lighter coat of paint quickly rolled over the wet crackle finish cracks and crazes as the finish dries.
Fabrics
Unlike the furniture, distressed or shabby chic fabrics should be immaculate. Ragged and torn fabrics don't look charming; they just look ragged and torn. The pattern makes the difference, here. A light color palette that includes creams, whites and light blues and greens work well. Rusty reds, petal pinks and butter yellows make up the warm color palette for this bedroom. Prints traditionally include soft florals and checked patterns, but you can give them a modern punch with stripes, key- and scrollwork designs or branches and leaves. Mix a few solids into your sheets and curtains to set off the patterns.
Accessories
Choose your accessories judiciously, thinking about what looks old or vintage and what just looks messy. A metal lamp with a little tarnish looks antique, but a glass vase with scratches or watermarks just looks sloppy. Cushion fabrics should be clean and bright, even if the wooden chair they're sitting on has rough or worn places. Picture frames may be roughed up a bit, but the glass and art inside them should be polished and clean-looking. Distressed decorating is all about placing the bright and the fresh next to something worn to make everything look cozy and comfortable.
Tags: shabby chic, , color palette, crackle finish, distressed shabby, distressed shabby chic