A new piece to share! This is part of a trio set which is solid wood. Great vintage furniture. I love it. I was very indecisive about what to do with this piece. I knew I wanted to do something a little more unique, but I wasn't feeling all that inspired.
During this time of quiet contemplation, Mr. Chuckles and I repainted a good portion of our house. We went with a soft gray and also updated a geometric feature wall we have with some new colours. It all turned out great (although it took the better part of a week). One night, exhausted on the couch I was admiring my living room wall paper when I Eureka'd that it would look great on the dresser.
I still had a little bit left over from wallpapering the living room and decided to put it to use. I first sanded and primed the drawer and then cut the wall paper so that the pattern was continuous over the three drawers.
I painted the opposite side of the drawers with a mid-tone gray that would pull the gray out of the paper. I used chalkpaint as I wanted a soft romantic feel.
I painted the wrap of the piece in a soft gray, it pulls a little white in the pictures, but it is a very soft gray.
The original wood hardware was painted in the same soft gray as the wrap and protected with satin sheen polyacrylic. I hand buffed the metal fastners to a soft gold.
The gray lines on the wallpaper has a lovely soft metallic reflective sheen which isn't remotely visible in this picture.
This is a before of the matching tallboy as I forgot to snap a before of the six-drawer.
I bought this little antique gem along with the one I refinished in mint from the same ol' English lady who was moving house. This is the one I asked Mr. Chuckles to help me fix the missing piece of veneer on in my previous post. His methods may be a little unconventional (erm. just a little), but he sure did come through with the goods, because you can't even tell there was ever anything wrong with it.
I opted for a teal-blue colour which I custom mixed. I knew I was going to do some heavy distressing which looks great with the really dark stained finish poking through on the sides
I accented with some of the mint I had left over from my previous project which I really like as it adds some highlights and moves your eye around the piece a lot.
I also painted that neat little recessed detailing in mint as well. Initially I was going to do it a dark colour (black?), but Im glad I decided to go with a lighter colour as I think it keeps it elegant and fresh.
I did some really heavy distressing on this one, more so than on the mint to really make it look rustic and antique.
I enjoyed working on these little dressers, it was a nice change from the big-bertha's I usually do. Speaking of big-bertha, I just returned home with a massive 9-drawer dresser. Stay tuned for the transformation!
Have a great weekend. Im off camping - again!
This dresser was a long and drawn out affair (think Victor and Nikky from Y&R) I began by painting it a light blue, but the finished effect looked ill suited to anything but a nursery. The plan was to have it in our bedroom, so nursery was definitely out of the question.
Phase two was to paint over the blue with grey. It looked better. A little. But it still didn't have any pazzaz and it just didn't quite get me excited.
Phase three was to whitewash over the grey, ok I started to like it a little more, but it needed some extra contrast in my mind, bring on Phase four..
Phase four was to stain the top a very very dark chocolate (almost black) to amp up the contrast a bit.
It is a great addition to the muted tones of our bedroom and provides ample storage for Mr. Chuckles' unmentionables.
The cute vintage pictures are framed advertisements from old 1950s 'Life' magazines passed down to us from Mr. Chuckle's grandfather. I love the one of Santa holding a typewriter.
A close up of the whitewash technique. I painted over the knobs as well, and then did some light distressing to show the brass through.
I haven't decided if I will distress the dresser. What do you think?
