Ikea Helmer Hack with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint

Paint is one of the easiest way to transform a piece of furniture that just doesn’t fit into your decor. Back in October, I took an Ikea PS locker cabinet and gave it a more vintage-industrial vibe with Krylon’s chalkboard paint, craft paint and Annie Sloan’s dark wax. I’ll put the link to the tutorial for you at the bottom of this post.  Today, I’ll show how I took a another cheap metal cabinet from our storage building and made it look less like an Ikea product and more like something you might find in an antique store. All it took was little bit of paint, wax and elbow grease.

Meet Helmer. He’s a little guy, but he’s a workhorse. And since he can be found at Ikea for $40.00, he’s pretty irresistible.

He was my portable-craft-cabinet for several years until one of the plastic wheels broke. I couldn’t find a replacement wheel and I wasn’t crazy about the color, so he’s been sitting in the storage building for the past five years. I love finding ways to make newer, modern things look vintage and ol’ Helmer seemed perfectly suited and destined for a paint makeover. So, I dusted him off and decided to give him a second chance by painting him with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Arles.

For anyone who wants to know if you can use chalk paint on metal…absolutely! You just have to give the piece a light sanding first if the surface is glossy.

The supplies you need to give an Ikea Helmer a hack with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint are:

320 grit sandpaper, a tack cloth, mineral spirits, a paint brush, Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in your color of choice, Annie Sloan Soft Wax (I used clear), Rust-Oleum spray paint in oil rubbed bronze for the handles. New castor wheels are optional. 

As you can see, even after drying overnight, the paint could be scratched off easily on the unsanded side. The sanded side did not budge. To get the soft, buttery yellow color, I mixed two parts of Annie Sloan’s Arles with one part Pure White.

I sanded the entire cabinet with 320 grit sandpaper. You only need to scuff it up enough to give the paint something to grab onto. I wiped it down with mineral spirits and then cleaned the remaining dust off with a tack cloth.

After two coats of Annie Sloan paint, you can start the fun part… sanding and distressing the edges where the cabinet would have naturally been worn and knocked around. There’s no secret to this part. Just do a little, step away and see where you need to sand a little more. Wipe the cabinet again with your tack cloth and then apply two light coats of Annie Sloan’s Soft Clear Wax and buff with a soft cloth. You can tell by the color difference in the top drawer how the wax brings out the true color of the paint.

I gave the handles a makeover with Rust-Oleum’s Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint and added some labels to the drawers. Since one of the original caster wheels was broken, I replaced all of them with 1 5/8″ caster wheels, item # 0066942, from Lowes.

Now, the drawer unit looks less utilitarian and fits in better with our cottage style kitchen. Plus, it adds a punch of color. It will look even better if I can squeeze in the time to repaint our kitchen gray this summer.

In case you missed it, the tutorial for the vintage yardstick tray is here. I’ll have the tutorial for the tiered map organizer in a later post. I don’t want to overload you guys with Mod Podge projects, as much as I love them!

The Ikea PS cabinet that I painted to resemble an aged-steel Restoration Hardware cabinet can be found here. You can see how I made the faux rivets in this post.  Despite the fact the boys play with their toys on this cabinet, it has held up well over the past nine months. Besides, I try not to stress about them naturally distressing it. 🙂

Don’t you love how paint can transform a piece furniture? Have you made any Ikea hacks recently? If you’re unfamiliar with what an Ikea hack is, there is an entire website dedicated to just that over at Ikeahackers.net.

Linking this up to some of my favorite blogs such as:

Miss Mustard Seed