Habitat bright ideas with Fleur Thorpe – DIY projects
Use the New Zealand landscape to inspire your next project and paint a mural on a sideboard to create a statement piece you can take anywhere you live.
Wall colour – Resene Eighth Canterbury Clay
Skirting board – Resene Half Rice Cake
Step 1: Remove the drawers. Number each drawer on the back so that you know which one fits in which space when you put them back in.
Using 120 grit sandpaper, sand the drawer fronts and the body of the drawers. Pay particular attention to the edges and corners where paint may be cracking and flaking. Make sure you remove all loose paint. Wipe down with a soft cloth to remove all the dust. Put the drawers back in.
Step 2: Use a small Smooth Surfaces Microfibre Blend roller to paint the drawer fronts and the body of the drawers with Resene Quick Dry. Once dry, lightly sand everything with a soft sanding block or very fine finishing sandpaper. Don’t skip this step! It makes all the difference to the smoothness of the final paint finish. Dust down with a soft cloth.
Project before
Step one
Step two
Step 3: On a piece of paper, sketch out your design and work out where each colour will go.
Step 4: With the Microfibre Blend roller, use Resene Lustacryl in your choice of colour to paint the sky, which will also include the top surface of the piece of furniture. Fleur used Resene Onahau. Resene Lustacryl is a hardwearing paint and better suited to surfaces that will experience a bit of wear and tear.
Step 5: Using a small craft paintbrush, proceed to paint in each part of the landscape by starting at the furthest point (the hills which are furthest away). Start by painting in the outline and then you can swap to a bigger paintbrush to fill in the rest. Do a couple of coats of each Resene testpot colour. When the paint is dry, continue with the next hill, working your way down the landscape to the bottom of the piece of furniture.
Top tip: You can update the sideboard legs to a new style if you wish .Instead of buying new legs, buy a small second-hand table with the type of legs you want, removed the legs and attach them to the sideboard, then paint in your chosen Resene colour. Fleur painted these in Resene Iko Iko.
Step three
Step three contd.
Step five
Styling and images by Fleur Thorpe, 2019.
Habitat bright ideas
Need to add colour, pattern or a little creativity to your place? Check out these easy step by step DIY project ideas created in collaboration with Fleur Thorpe. We hope you enjoy making and painting these bright ideas and bringing colour to your home inside or out.