Tuesday 30 July 2013

Mint & Antique

I had a great week of holidays!  I spent some time up at a cottage, and then went camping for a few days with friends.  Everything was great despite the chilly weather, a real change after the scorchers we had the week before.  I was starting to miss my paint brush by the end though and was keen to get back to my workshop (garage) like any good addict.


This little dresser was great fun to work on, and it was nice to do a piece that was smallish and I didn’t have to get Mr. Chuckles every time I needed to shift it around. 

It is definitely an old piece.  The top is planked wood that hooks into each other, something I had only seen once before (see my Ottawa Oldie post)


I sanded everything back and gave a couple of coats of white primer as I wanted some white to poke through when I distressed.  I then custom mixed up some mint using old tins of ASCP and slathered that on.



I gave everything a good sanding with the orbital to get a super smooth finish before doing some distressing. 


I love the way the white shows through the mint adding some layers of goodness.  I finished with clear wax and just a smidge of dark wax.  I wanted to keep it light and fresh.



Linking up to:
DIY blog Classy Clutter

The Shabby Nest

Thursday 18 July 2013

Midcentury Modern set In Gray




I picked up this set as an entire bedset for FREE off a kind gentleman who was moving out of province: 2 nightstands, tallboy and longboy.  Unfortunately the long boy was in such bad structural condition that I donated it to goodwill.  It was bowed and sagging in the middle and all the drawers banged into each other.  Too bad, because it was pretty cool looking.  I have worked on pieces before with bad bones, and it always drives me bonkers in the end. It drives Mr. Chuckles bonkers too as he is the one who ends up helping me fix them!



But alas, I rescued the other three pieces.  I went for deep charcoal as my base.  I knew I wanted to do a fun little detail, but I didn't have much time to get these guys done before I go away on holidays, so I needed to keep it simple.


 I love striping on MCM pieces, I think it really suits the trendiness of them and compliments their clean lines.  I was inspired by some pieces in blogland that had large and small stripes side-by-side.  I thought this looked cool, yet still pretty simple, so I opted for that.


 I custom mixed up the 'white' - it is actually pure white ASCP with a tiny bit of the charcoal grey mixed in, just to take the edge of the brilliance a bit.  I used painters tape to do the stripes, doing a coat of my base colour first (charcoal), and then doing two coats of the white (helps prevent bleed through to do the basecoat colour first).  Little tip for ya!



This set has pretty cool wood pulls.  When I have all 3 dressers lined up together for a picture they remind me of Batman!  Something about the way the curve.  They are almost a bit Gothic looking.




That's all for me today.  It has a busy and super-duper hot week.  Its amazing the paint even dried on these bad-boys! Our humidex was consistently above 40 celcius. 

Thursday 11 July 2013

Turquoise Distressed Dresser

This piece was so much fun to work on.  It had so much character with all that ornate detailing, and the hardware is simply swoon worthy!


I felt really lucky to find this piece because a few months ago I responded to an ad for the same set and tried to get the seller to just sell me the dresser (and not the rest of the set).  My offer was refused and I remember I was so upset because I had such a vision of what could be done with it.


Fast forward 4 months, and I found the same dresser, for sale all by itself!  Thank you furniture gods!


I confess I was going to use emerald.  In fact I had behr 'precious emerald' colour matched in my dulux as I was inspired by this piece by Pam at 'Simple Details' .  My emerald turned out much more 'forest green' than this one though, and I was a little reluctant to try it out.  So instead I played it safe and opted for my fav shade of turquoise (again!).



I painted the insides of the recessed detailing two shades lighter than the  turquoise body, and again accented with some blue and yellow.  Everything got a good distressing to 'vintage' it up a bit. As usual, the detailing is hard to see in the pictures. Sigh.


I just can't get enough of the hardware.  They are little works of art all by themselves!  They are like butterflies, all set to flutter away.






linking up to:

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http://www.savvysouthernstyle.net/



Sunday 7 July 2013

Refinished MCM Danish Credenza

I picked this gorgeous girl up from my favorite re-store.  It was in great condition, apart from the top which was very scratched up.


It was way too lovely to paint.  Initially I thought I might only re-stain the top, but after I did that, the sides and front sliding panels didn't look so great.  So I sanded them back and re-stained them as well.


I ended up leaving the drawers original though, they were in very good condition and I like the little bit of contrast they give to the rest of the unit which is dark walnut.


Lots of aerial shots, the dresser was too long for me to get the whole thing in the shot otherwise. It is about 79" long.



Here is original pic below, as you can see, it was in pretty great shape to begin with!  A lucky little find for me.

I

Distressed Turquoise Buffet Dresser

UPDATE!  I was grumpily sipping on my coffee at 7am yesterday when my bleary eyes turned on 'Candace Tells All'.  A double take was in order because I thought this dresser below was making its new home in one of her clients living room.  It took me a good 3 seconds to determine if it was in fact my dresser.  It wasn't. Sigh. How neat would that have been.  The dresser she was using was so similar in both style and colour. Good taste Candace!
 
 
You know it's a good day when you stumble across a piece of furniture you love, only to find out that it is.....FREE!!  I scored this gem at my favorite re-store just when she was about to be loaded onto a truck bound for the dump.  Naturally I flapped my arms about and gestured over to the my trunk - open, willing and spacious.


I have been missing my turquoise lately, having been doing a lot of whites and other colours.  So this was my chance to dust off the lid of my favorite shade of turquoise and work some magic. 


 I did a couple of base coats and then I brushed on some yellow and cobalt accents.  They don't come out too wonderfully with the poor quality of my camera phone - but they are there.  I assure you. ;)


I love the legs on this dresser.  Very grand and statement making.



You can see a bit of the cobalt and yellow in this picture.  If you squint your eyes.



 A bit of the heavy distressing can be seen in the close-up shot below.


That's all for today.  Have a nice one.  


I remembered to snap a before shot of this one.