How To Age a Frame With a Bright Gold Finish

Inside: You will find instructions on how to create an aged or antique look on a bright metallic finish in a few easy steps!

If you have been following my One Room Challenge makeover you would have noticed the piece that made the room - the gorgeous Parisian style mirror!


I had been scouring Facebook Marketplace for months looking for the perfect vintage gold mirror that would be the right scale for our bedroom dresser. I found one, but upon brining it home, it was too large for the dresser. After a chance visit to Homesense where the mirror was sitting front and center, I had a "start the car" moment as I quickly snatched it, purchased it and drove it home.



It had a very bight finish, not the antique look I wanted. So I decided to give it an aged look using some stain I had on hand.

How-To:


1. Begin by taping off the mirror to protect it from the stain and sealant spray.


2. Dip a rag into the stain and begin to rub it onto the frame. Wipe away excess. Apply stain to the whole frame, adjusting the amount you apply, depending on the look you want to achieve. The stain I used is Rustoleum's Premiun gel stain in Kona.



3. Let dry for several hours. Then seal with a matte clear coat. I like Rustoleum's Chalked Matte clear coat. Let dry and remove tape and paper. You can now hang it up!


I LOVE how it looks like an antique from a Parisian flea market.






I would love if you tried this to tag me on Instagram or Facebook. You can find me at @markovadesign!


One Room Challenge: The Reveal | Budget Friendly Master Bedroom Makeover


Wowza! I can't believe this room is done! It's here, the reveal of our budget friendly master bedroom makeover for the One Room Challenge!

Ok, actually the room is 90% complete. There is still the armchair that has a half finished forest green velvet slipcover, but good things take time. Once finished, I'll photograph it. It will be so good!

What is the One Room Challenge? It is where 20 featured designers are making over a space in 6 weeks. All of the featured designers will create amazing spaces, armed with sponsors and the ability to renovate and make drastic changes to their homes. I decided to take on another challenge with our master bedroom. But I really didn't have a clear plan when I started. BIG MISTAKE. This room would have been completed way earlier if I had created a plan beforehand. Instead, I was winging it as I went along. It meant I had to forgo certain things that wouldn't be shipped in time. In addition, I wasn't able to source things on Facebook Marketplace or in thrift shops because that too requires persistence and patience.

If you are new here, my hubby and I live in a rental home where I  have been slowly adding our touch to our home using creativity and ingenuity! You can visit my last 2 One Room Challenge makeovers where I re-designed our kitchen with renter friendly updates and I revamped our son's old bedroom into my sewing room!

The Plan:

There actually wasn't a true well thought out plan which caused one indecision after another and a sense of panic. One plan I did have was to re-use everything in the room, paint the walls, rearrange furniture, shop the house and only purchase a few accessories. It is amazing how a new coat of paint along with some accessories can make a space look new and fresh.








We are renting and as much as I would have liked to add panelling on all the walls like the cool blogger girls do, I couldn't. Our room has been slowly transitioning over the past 5 years since we have moved into this house. The room has an akward layout where it is longer than wider. There is a curved wall, and many weird angles on one side of the room which limits where you can position furniture. We tried to move one dresser to the opposite wall but it was too crowded. Visually it left a gap on the wall where they currently are, so we left the two dressers side by side.


Shortly after we moved in, I ditched the standard rental horizontal blinds and sewed Roman shades. Two years ago I hung drapery from Ikea to add an extra layer. We bought the plug in wall sconces but I was never a fan of the standard oil rubbed bronze finish, so I spray painted them gold.


What I did over the course of the 5 weeks, was paint the walls twice. The initial colour wasn't right, so I re-painted in Cloud White by Benjamin Moore but had it colour matched at Home Depot using Behr paint and primer. I love how bright the room is and how it makes the blinds pop. The only drawback was the black and white photographs I had planned on hanging above the bed, just didn't' work so I put the red fretwork mirror back up.

The gallery wall was VERY hard to photograph, but I used a mix of artwork that my husband likes with photos of us when we were engaged and married. I am loving the mix of frames and artwork!

The mirror was a Homesense find after perusing Facebook Marketplace for months and coming short of a mirror that would fit in the space. There is a mirror I found sitting in the spare bedroom but it was simply too wide. I have plans for that one. The current mirror when I first grabbed it (I had a start the car moment in Homesense when others were eyeing the mirror in my cart) was a bright, bright gold. Liberace gold as I like to call it.

I wanted an aged antique look, as if I found it at an antique Parisian market. I spray painted a warmer gold spray paint using Rustoleum's Metallic spray paint in gold and then I rubbed on Rustoleum's Varathane ebony gel stain to dull and make it look aged. To seal, I used Rustoleum's Chalked spray paint in matte clear finish. It has to be my favourite piece in the room.


The dressers got an update with new hardware from Lee Valley. I wanted to use O'verlays but their turnaround time was a few weeks, so they wouldn't have made it in time.



The armchair that was in the room is getting a new velvet slipcover in forest green but I underestimated how long it would take me to sew it. It is 80% finished and I hope next weekend I can get it done. In the meantime, I shopped the house and this spare armchair is in it's place.



Sadly, I also wasn't able to source a budget friendly large Persian rug for our room, so my smaller one is in our room temporarily for a pop of colour. As well I couldn't find a light fixture to replace the standard boob light. I get paralysis by analysis and take forever to bight the bullet on things like light fixtures or area rugs. I took me 3 years to decide on the glorious rug we have in our living room.


Let's take a walk down memory lane. Here was our room when we moved in.


This was the bedroom in transition.

And now!








Love how adding some accessories and rearranging the art work, adding in fresh new fabric in the pillows, the room looks so different! Love how bright and fresh it feels. 


The bicycle was a find from Homesense, the urn and brass pot are thrifted and the antique wood box was my late grandmother's.





Love that my vintage cut blue Bohemian crystal box along with a vintage parfume bottle that belonged to my late grandmother have a special spot on my dresser.




This mirror that was made from an antique frame my mother brought from Prague hangs in a corner of the bedroom.


I added in colour with fabric to tie in with the Roman blinds. The pillow on the armchair I have had for years and is one of my favourite. Made with the classic Chiang Mai Dragon print by Schumacher, I will NEVER tire of this classic print.



Using fabric I had leftover from Tonic Living, I sewed the striped lumbar pillow to add to the large oversize black velvet pillows that were in the space. To add a pop of colour, I whipped up a pillow that is made from the same delicious forest green velvet I am using to slipcover the armchair along with a piece of Schumacher fabric that was given to me!



The Roman shades were made using Neo Toile in coral fabric by Robert Allen that Tonic Living used to carry.












Be sure to pop over to the One Room Challenge website to see ALL of the amazing transformations. Thank you Linda for creating the One Room Challenge! An interesting tidbit, I was one of the original ORC BEFORE Linda trademarked the whole concept and before it became this world wide internet sensation. As well, thank you to Better Homes and Gardens for being a media partner, as a long time fan it's awesome to have the media attention!

I'm tired. The rest of my house is a mess. Now I spend the next week catching up on all the housework AND organizing the spare bedroom that was a dumping ground during the One Room Challenge.