Aged Light Turquoise

I custom mixed up this colour.  It is a nice feminine blue-turquoise.  This dresser was in fabulous vintage condition.  A great find with all the detailing.

  

I sanded really well, and then primed the entire thing with Zinsser BIN (I find this stuff so frustrating to work with because it dries so bleeping fast, but it has aaaaamazing adhesion)

After my Zinsser dried (about 4 seconds later), wink wink, I painted on two coats of the turquoise.  I then highlighted the recessed detail with cobalt blue, and the raised detail with a lighter shade of the turquoise.

The result was very pretty, but not nearly edgy enough, I decided to give everything a really good sand to make it look more ‘antique-chic’ and less ‘little girl’s room’.

Because the Zinsser is stubborn as hell, it doesn’t come away when sanded like the paint does, so its great for creating a layered paint look.

The hardware was very dull and dingy, but I used my old sanding technique to bring out the soft gold lurking beneath.  I then shot a blast of sealer to prevent future tarnishing.

I picked up four new rolls of decorative paper a couple of days ago, and it was a real toss up to decide which one to use on the inside drawer facings.  I decided to go with a grey/white chevron pattern.  I kind of think it gets a bit lost against the boldness of the dresser.  I had a great dragonfly on butcher paper one, I wish I’d gone with that one instead!  Next time.

And here is the before. Not a bad looking lady.

Linking up to missmustard seed.  Have a great long weekend!

Vintage MCM night stands

I love mid-century furniture.  So clean and chic looking!  I found this lovely pair of nightstands as part of a set (as mentioned in my previous post).  One nightstand was in great shape, the other, not so much.

At first I was just going to refinish in stain and keep them natural, but I love a good two-toned look, so I mixed things up by painting the body in bone-white, and restaining the drawer facings in dark walnut.  The legs were surprisingly in great shape, so I left them alone apart from spot dabbing small blemishes with gel stain.

I think the contrast looks great!  They look like funky little tv screens!

I also have the matching tallboy, and a beautiful matching full length mirror.  They are both in great shape, so for now, they are escaping the paint brush.  But you never know what the future holds!

And below is the original.  The top had the worst of the wear, definitely could not be left as is.

Beautiful Walnut MCM Credenza

I am going to preface this post by saying I didn't have to do much to this beauty!  When I saw it posted on our local 'craigslist', I knew straight away I wanted it.  Those clean lines, the great finish, the fantastic condition!  Love at first sight.

I picked it up and was even more astounded how great the condition was.  All I needed to do was a few touch ups here and there with walnut gel stain, and then clean it up bit.

It came with a tallboy (also in fantastic condition) and two nightstands.  One night stand was perfect and the other one was not.  So because I wanted to keep them as a pair, I decided to redo them (see their transformation in my next post!).

But for now, enjoy a few shots of mid-century furniture at its finest!

One Dresser - Two Different Ways

In a previous post (here) I talked about how lucky I felt when I found a particular dresser that had slipped through my fingers a few months previous.  I painted it up in a teal/turquoise with lots of highlighting and distressing and I was so happy with it!

 Fast forward a short two weeks later and I couldn’t believe my luck when I found the same dresser again!  ‘Woop-Woop’ I wailed at my good fortune.  ‘Raw-Raw’ I cheered at the reasonable price.  I picked it up and soon found a person who wanted to provide it with a loving home.

She decided she wanted it painted in pure white to pop off a textured gray wall she had, and although that would not have been my initial choice (you know how I love those blues and greens!) I have to say, that I think it looks incredibly elegant and chic.  The raised and recessed detailing capture the shadows and play with the light so much, that it wasn’t necessary to highlight with another colour.

It took a lot of primer and paint for coverage though (one of the pitfalls of white).  After sanding really well, I primed using Zinsser Cover Stain because it has great adhesion.  I then topped with Dulux Diamond in pure white (my go-to paint).  I used a satin finish as I prefer a lower sheen on my white furniture (apart from factory finished furniture – in that case I love super glossy).

On my previous piece I buffed up the hardware to a soft gold using a sanding block.  The future mother of this baby-girl was more partial to silver though, so I decided to use spray paint.  

I am going to detail the steps I took in a separate post, but to be brief, I scuffed up the hardware with sandpaper, sprayed with Krylon Metalic silver, and then topped it with black glaze to age it up. I then sealed it in with a spray sealer.  Im very happy with the result.

One downside of this dresser was that she was a little on the short side – she only stood a meagre 30” tall.  So like the other turquoise one I painted, we decided to custom add a cute pair of stilettos to this girl – enter Mr. Chuckles for some expert help. 

I sourced a pair of vintage legs, and repeated the same process as I did on the dresser – sand, prime, paint, seal and we attached them using brackets.  The height makes all the difference in the world in my opinion!  I love legs on dressers, and have added them to many now.  It’s a fair bit of work, but the result is so worth it!

Am I seeing double, or is that a Mirror?

Ladies and gentleman, I present.......{drumroll please} the third installment of the ongoing saga of MIRROR TRANSFORMATIONS!

 For you those of you who don't follow my blog on a regular basis (aherm, that would be most of you I suspect), I have been making efforts to do something about the surplus of dresser mirrors that are currently hogging up my garage/workshop space.  I have completed two other transformations:  A beautiful coral one (here), and a trendy shade of blue (here).

For the third one, I decided to go with a darker colour.  Why you ask?  Because Im lazy, I tell you!  Those bright colours took lots of coats of paint, and that equates to lots of work for me!  So for this one I used my Dulux Diamond paint in deep charcoal.  Super adhering, super-duper coverage in only two coats.  Crowd cheers!  (oh, and if you are wondering what is reflecting in the mirror, that is our custom made floor to ceiling headboard, to read about click (here)

Because dark colours don't let the light in, I found the raised detailing up the top was getting lost.  So I decided to whip up a lighter shade of gray by adding some white paint to my charcoal, and I highlighted some of the detailing to pull the eye up to that region.

This is a flat paint, so in order to inject some sheen I wiped on a coat of home made wipe on poly (for instructions, click here). It did the trick perfectly!

As usual, I forgot to snap a before pic, but she is the second one from the front in this of this cluster-o-brown!

Also, if anyone else is currently trying to paint through a stash of dresser mirrors, Id love to hear about it!

Happy painting everyone!

Mirror...Part Deux

Happy Sunday everyone!  What a beautiful day it was here today. FINALLY!  I just thought I would do a quick post tonight to feature my second mirror makeover.   

 As I was talking about in this post here, I have about nine dresser mirrors at the moment and have decided to paint up some of the nicer ones and make some room in the garage for Mr. Chuckles. For this mirror, I primed with Zinsser Bullseye in the spray can.  I then used a Valspar spray paint to paint the mirror this nice shade of blue.  It took quite a few coats to get full coverage.

 I considered distressing or glazing the mirror, but I actually kind of like it bright and bold as it is, so its going to stay that way!

After I put it all back together, I realized the mirror itself has a large blemish where part of the backing has been scraped.   *#$@^ Dang! 

If anyone knows of any easy tricks for repairing this type of damage, Id love to hear!

That's all from me!  Enjoy your Sunday. :)

Coral Hollywood Regency Dresser

Coral strikes again!  Kapow!! I have only been brave enough to try coral once before (here)and I loved it!!!  Look all those exclamation marks!  Its obvious I love it!  Apparently coral was the colour of 2012.  So what if Im a year behind. Meh. No biggie

This beauty is a vintage Kroeller dresser and was in ship-shape condition.  I used a white primer as I have learned the hard way that coral gets paltry coverage. The lady at the paint store gave a good analogy when she likened it to the coating on a candy apple.

After priming 2 coats, I painted about 3 or 4 coats of the coral.  It took quite a lot of coats. I also sealed with two coats of satin wipe-on-poly. I distressed all over the front and sides, but opted to leave the top undistressed.  I mixed things up a bit by sometimes distressing through to the wood, and other times going through just to the white primer. 

I also discovered by happy accident, that distressing super lightly actually revealed a burnt yellow colour.  So all up, there about four different layers of colours on this girl.

  

I modpodged some leftover coral and white contemporary paper I had from a previous project.  I love modpodging paper onto drawers, adds such a bit o’ fun!! 

This paper is a medium thickness, and goes on fairly well.  I have used it before (here) and really loved how it looked with the coral.  I distressed it lightly to take the 'newness' out of it and help blend better with the rest of the piece.

I like chunky hardware, and these ones were super cool. But they were so dark and dirty and dingy looking.  I thought about spraypainting gold, but didn’t want them to be perfectly solid.  I tried rubbing Brasso over them, but it didn’t work that well, and it really stunk. Im not sure that its related, but I noticed that Miss Do-As-I-Please passed out for about a ½ hour after one good wiff of the stuff. Hmmm, better than catnip?

In the end I tried a trick that worked before (here)by sanding them.  It kind of works like a buffer, and it shined em up good.  I sealed them with a spray-on acrylic clear coat to help prevent future tarnishing.

***UPDATE

I wasnt quite happy with the hardware, I wanted it a bit bolder, so I decided to add the little backer plates for some extra ooomph!  I gave them a blast of gold spray paint as they were not responding to my sanding technique, and then I actually sanded off some of the gold paint randomly to make them look aged.

What do you think?  Plates on, or plates off?

Mirrors Mirrors, Everywhere I Look I See Mirrors!!

Mirrors.  I seem to accumulate an abundance of them - much to Mr. Chuckles disdain.   I can't blame myself here as it seems that every time I pick up a dresser, people are thrusting them at me. 'Oh, don't forget the mirrors!' they chortle while hoisting them onto the dresser already challenging the shocks of the Mazda 3. Sometimes two or three are flung my way in one transaction.  Who am I to turn down freebies?  It goes against my nature. Free things make me sing from rooftops in the rain, despite the fact that when I get them home and see them in the harsh light of day, I realize I have no where to store them and that they are quite, well, ugly.

And Ill be honest, I find refinishing mirrors to be a pain in the rumpus.  Being an anal retentive type, Im not happy to just paint them as is, no no, that would be too easy.  I need to unscrew, unpluck every nailgun nail, or screw from the back and take the whole thing apart.  My cat 'Miss Do As I Please' on the other hand enjoys this immensely and loves parading around on top of the glass to see how many pawprint-signatures she can leave.  She has a big fan club.

But alas, the other day, with my growing collection threatening the integrity of my garagedoor latch, Mr. Chuckles put his foot down and said 'Its the Mirrors or me!'.  So I conceded and agreed to post the uglier ones for free online, and paint up the nicer ones.

I was in the process of painting out a 9-drawer dresser coral (here), so I figured Id make it easy on myself and paint one of the mirrors (I have 10 in total) coral at the same time.

I have to say, I love how it turned out and am now feeling something akin to excitement about painting the other ones!  Go figure.

Now I just need to figure out how to take a good photo of them without snapping myself in the reflection.

 Am I the only one with nest of mirrors lurking in her garage? Are there more of 'us' out there or am I the only mirror-hoarder in blogland?