Wednesday 23 October 2013

Miss Frenchy Wears Teal

Isnt this a lovely looking french provincial dresser.  I drove a ways to pick her up from a slightly odd man.  It was dark and dreary in the room, so I was happy to get out of there quickly.

When I got home, I learned a valuable lesson.  Don’t let odd men in dingy dark settings deter you from really ‘checking out’ the piece.  Because it wasn’t until I got this beast home that I realized it was….eeek…laminate. 


Now don’t get me wrong, I have painted laminate in the past, and I will paint it again no doubt, but I certainly avoid it unless the dresser is either free, or a super-duper steal.  This thing was neither of those.  I didn’t overpay, but I don’t think I would have handed over that much had I known it was laminate. So lesson learnt!  Always check for presence of laminate.
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Anyways, onto the fun stuff.  I sanded (lightly) and made sure not to go through to the MDF.  I primed with a good adhesion primer which I tinted to a similar colour as my top coat. 


When I came back a couple of hours later I realized I had left the garage door open, and apparently someone had stopped in for a visit because there were some strange markings in the finish.



I was able to apprehend the culprit pretty quickly though.  Blue paws tell no lies.


After priming, I did two coats of a colour I custom mixed.  I was inspired by a piece by Estuary Designs and wanted to mix up a similar colour.  In real life she is more teal-green, my camera favours the blue tones and I can't quite capture the colour accurately.


I gave the hardware a subtle spritz with some gold spray paint just to refresh them a tad.  


And here is the before.  Looks like real wood, or at least wood veneer, doesn't it!





5 comments:

  1. ooh, it's just fabulous! And I love the caught-in-the-act kitty pic, too. My camera has the same trouble finding the greens in teal--wonder why that is?!

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  2. lol. I came across that same type of dresser off of CL. But I turned and walked away from it! You're right, not worth it. But yours really turned out nice. The average person won't even realize it. Also be aware of the plastic-y wood look-alikes!(I guess that qualifies as laminate. This is one of those chunky '70's dressers) I didn't even realize until I got it home and started to prime. Sigh. I'm hoping it will come out as good as yours.

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  3. I hear you, Beth. Usually I notice before I buy if it is laminate. Gave myself a little thump on the rump when I got home and realized. I have to admit though, the finish turned out good. I think the trick to a good end result is the prep work (a good sanding, and adhesion primer). Il drop by in a few days to check yours out. ;)

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  4. Thanks Gretchen,little Miss Do-As-I-Please has a real affinity for prancing around on my wet dresser tops. Thankfully this time it was only during the primer coat! If you find a solution for the camera bias toward blues, let me know! It drives me bonkers that all my work looks really blue, when often it is more green in result.

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  5. If you want to tweak your blues, change your RBG files to CMYK and increase your yellow in photoshop or similar program. Once you've got to that special "is it blue or is it green?" place, you can reconvert to RBG and post. Just make sure it isn't your own monitor that need calibration first!

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