Behr Oops Paint Furniture Makeover

My Behr oops paint furniture makeover might be a budget job but the finished chest looks like a million bucks. I made a video to show you the simple paint technique that made this piece so special.

I always shop the oops paint shelf when visiting my local home improvement stores. Sometimes they have really pretty paint colors and the paint is unbelievably cheap. In case you aren’t familiar with oops paint I’ll share my definition. It could be the paint was mixed wrong or the wrong color was mixed up or maybe the shoppers who selected the paint sample just decided they didn’t like the color once it was mixed.

The oops paint is marked down and usually, the formula sticker on top of the paint can is painted over. I’ve also heard tell that some home improvement stores will add more paint tint to the paint to make it a different color than originally mixed. See. apparently, there are some people out there who will have paint mixed, say they don’t want it, then after the paint is marked down come back and buy the paint. True.

Moving on….today is Furniture Fixer Upper Day and the girls did not disappoint. The makeovers are unbelievable. Be sure and take the tour.

This chest of drawers for today’s makeover came from a local online auction. My first purchase from this company. With all the fees the chest was $33. A deal.

The chest is made of MDF or fake wood. This piece reminds me of office furniture from the 90’s, although it is obviously bedroom furniture. I have a great post on painting poofy or damaged MDF furniture here.

It was pretty dirty and of course the first thing to do is clean it up. I vacuumed out all the fuzz and lint then cleaned with Simple Green.

I removed all the original hardware. Those drawer pulls are not making another appearance. Not on this piece anyway.

I planned to replace the pulls with knobs. I drilled a new hole for the knobs.

Then I filled the old screw holes with wood putty or as DAP calls it “Plastic Wood”.

Once the putty dried I sanded it flush with the drawer front using my Ryobi cordless sander. You may have to sand the putty then add more putty and sand again. The putty tends to shrink up when it dries and there will be a little indentation or pit in the screw hole.

See how nice and flush the putty is? I did a good job.

Now to tell you about this beauty's paint and the white details.

The Behr oops paint was $2.10 for the quart. No way to pass up that deal. I’ve had the can for a while. The date on the label is July 21, 2019. Behr Premium Plus is Paint and Primer in one and the sheen is eggshell. The paint is latex or water-based.

I painted a vintage piece of furniture with this paint ....The Weathered Gray Sideboard With A Coastal Nantucket Paint Finish in January. I loved the color then and now I love it even more.

I applied two coats of paint to the chest of drawers and didn’t use any primer.

My original plan was to brush brown paint on the drawer edges and details and use the shiny white knobs in the photo above. Well, after doing one drawer I decided that was not “the look” I wanted.

Moving on to my second plan and white paint instead of brown. I used a foam brush dipped in off-white paint to highlight the drawer edges, details on the chest body, and around the drawer knobs.

You might wonder why I did this instead of distressing. You can’t distress MDF or fake wood furniture because it crumbles, and if the MDF gets wet, it poofs up. Please watch the video to see the technique in process. The video tells the story much better.

The day I painted the chest, it was raining cats and dogs. I found a bunch of large wood knobs for the chest of drawers in my knob stash and spray painted the white white. I took the knobs to the carport and painted them there. The spray paint smells too strong to use inside, even in the workshop.

The knobs were too white white and I used the paint from the detail work on the drawers to paint the knobs. The paint is Behr, Cotton Knot color. I had a sample pot from when I was picking out colors to paint our guest bedrooms. I never let paint go to waste.

The detail on the bottom of the chest of drawers is easy to miss. I don’t know why they didn’t put that on the top drawer. The light brush of white paint really makes the detail pop.

The white wood knobs on the two top drawers are smaller than those on the three bottom drawers. How about that scallop detail and those curvy legs?? So pretty.

What do you think of the little bit of white washed or rubbed paint around the knobs? It’s a bit different but I like it.

The overall look is soft and feminine. The chest would be pretty in a nursery for a boy or a girl. Watch the video tutorial to see me in action on this project. The tutorial shows the white detail technique better than I can explain it in writing.

How To Brush White Paint On Furniture Details

Time to take the Furniture Fixer Upper Tour. Just click the pink text links below the “before makeovers” photo collage…..

Furniture Fixer Uppers Tour:

Music Cabinet Makeover from Confessions of a Serial DIY’er

 French Country Side Table from Girl In The Garage

 How To Paint Metal Furniture from Salvaged Inspirations

Behr Oops Paint Project from Petticoat Junktion (you are here)

Leave a note if you have time. I would love to know what you think of the gray chest of drawers. Thanks for being here, Kathy