Add a little Industrial Farmhouse Style to your furniture with this fun and easy update.

These two stools came from one of my op-shop (thrift store) finds here in my local area in Australia. They had been painted black during the start of their life in a factory somewhere in the world. I thought they’d be perfect for an industrial farmhouse style makeover.

I had painted another pair of stools with a black base and stenciled top recently and they sold right away before I could even get them to my booth at Camp Hill Antique Centre! So I thought I’d create something similar with these.

Sand the Tops Back to Raw Wood

The first step in my makeover was sanding!

If you’re unfamiliar with the various tools and methods you can use for sanding furniture, check out my post – How to Find the Best Sander for Your Furniture Project.

For these I used my Orbital Sander (USA readers use this affiliate link to find an Orbital Sander) with approx 180 grit to get the black paint off the top and then a finer grit to smooth out the finish (eg. 240-320 grit).

Tinting Fusion’s Tough Coat Wipe-on Poly

Next I tinted some of Fusion’s Tough Coat Wipe-on Poly with a little of their Chocolate colour in the paint range. This creates a stain/poly sealer for the seats before I stencil. The reason I used the wipe-on poly is that you are able to paint over the tough coat with Fusion’s water based paints, therefore I could create the stencil over the stain and then seal again when finished.

Stenciling Tips on my Facebook Live

A couple weeks ago I challenged myself to go live every day on Facebook with something. This particular day I chose to offer my best stenciling tips while painting these stools, so here is that video of the live for you to enjoy the replay!

Finishing touches for an Industrial Farmhouse Style

Once the stencil was finished, I added another coat of the Tough Coat Sealer to seal for extra protection of the stencil. Before doing the extra sealing, you can opt to distress your stencil a little to give it a more aged and industrial finish.

Stencil used for this makeover was this Coffee Roasters Stencil by Funky Junk Old Sign Stencils in Canada.

And here are the finished stools:

As you saw in the Live video replay above, I centred the whole sign stencil over the span of the two chairs to give it a more industrial farmhouse feel as though the stools had been made from an old sign. Looking for stencils?