Swedish basket makeover with tutorial

I wanted to buy some Byholma trunk baskets for our family room but Ikea has discontinued the weathered ones I wanted...they added a new basket trunk but it is a dark redish brown color which was not what I wanted...I wanted that old swedish basket look...

I started to search for other options and I found some gorgeous pieces at Target online...but they were very pricey..$260-$400 range....much more than I wanted to spend...so I bought two of the brown baskets from Ikea $99.00 and attempted to make them into what I had envisioned.

 my result is more grey than my inspiration but I love how they turned out, it's hard to believe they are even the same baskets

 Here is the before of how the GABBIG basket looks

I started this paint process with minwax water based stain in white wash pickling...I generously painted it all over the basket and put it in the sun to dry...

After the white layer I applied a dry brush layer in this custom taupe shade...by dry brush I mean I dipped the brush in to the paint and removed the excess stain on the side of the can to have very little transfer to the basket...I then let that dry...

nest I added some watered how white chalk paint at a ratio 8 parts water to 1 part paint...a very watery mix...I wanted that flat white wash...I brushed it on in a very sloppy generous manner..letting it drip is fine....after it dried I then flicked on drops of this watered paint with a big old brush...then dry brushed it to blend it in...

here is a good close up of another basket I worked on...the more you do the better...

 After this I used some black paint on a dry brush and very sparingly dry brushed on black very faintly to just accent and to create that low light type of effect...then I did the same with white chalk paint after that was dry I then applied a very sloppy wet coat of this water white and a touch of black paint to create this barely grey wash...it's the consistency of skim milk....you can't really go wrong...just water white paint and a touch of black...and lots of water...flat paints work best for this look.

After all the applied paint dried, this doesn't take long, I took my ryobi corner cat with a 120 grit paper and sanded the basket to make it appear more worn...

I wanted to add to my basket to create that old antique look with stenciled words...I decided to take inspiration from our location and from the year our house/church was built so Enfield 1877 was the stencil I made with my silhouette machine...a light coat of flat black spray paint and I had my antique one of a kind trunk basket...

after I stenciled the words and numbers I added one more light application over the black of the water grey wash to just soften the black...and that was how I achieved this unique look. 

 I did two different designs to create the appearance that perhaps I found these trunks.

I'm really please with how they turned out and it was fun to tackle this project...it took about an hour to complete these two baskets on a nice hot sunny day.

So if you are searching for that swedish look but don't have bags of money to spend this is worth the effort...and you can even stock up on clearance baskets because you will want to add this finish to all your baskets...

thanks for reading....and happy painting,

Chris