Turquoise / Blue Dresser with Gold Hardware

A Bit of Furniture, and a Bit of my Living Room

I have actually had this piece for quite a while now. But I just realized I have never posted about it. Mr Chuckles and I are snowbirding it for the month of Feb and so I am currently on hiatus from any furniture transforming.  So I figured it was a good time to do some posting about things I usually don't have time for as I always seem to have a dripping brush in my hand.

The pictures above show this piece started its life out as a midget. I assume that it used to be the bottom section of a china cabinet because it is super short at 27" tall.  If memory serves, this is the piece that began my affliction of adding legs to dressers.  I have added custom legs to quite a few pieces now and this was the first one.  With the legs, it now stands at about 35" tall and looks very stately.  Before it just looked weird.

I used a diy chalk paint on this in a colour I have used a lot of times. I love the way it looks blue in some light and than greenish in some light.  I used a mixure of grout, water and a Behr sample pot.  

If you have read my TIPS ON BETTER DIY CHALK PAINT you will know that I dont really like Behr, and now I never use it.  I actually think Behr is one of the worst paints for furniture makeovers.  It does not stick well at all in my opinion.  But, this piece was done long before I began my quest and experimenting to find the best paints for furniture.

I sanded the piece and cleaned it first, but I didn't prime it.  I slathered on two or three coats of the paint, this colour has awesome coverage and 2 coats was probably enough.  I then used different colours to highlight the inlaid 'steps' of the drawer frames. I used yellows and different shades of blue, turquoise and black.  Its hard to see in the pictures, but the effect is great in real life and produces a wonderful rustic feel.

I sanded well between coats and after the final coat to smooth things out, and I lightly waxed with mixwax.  I only waxed very softly and I did not buff for shine.  This piece has a very flat feel.  I did some light distressing on the edges to tie in with the rustic charm of the drawers.

I initially left the hardware original, but when my rub-n-buff arrived in the mail a month and a half ago, I put it to use straight away by rubbing the hardware with grecian gold.  The contrast looks amazing and I love the piece even more now!

Just coming back to the behr/chalk paint.  This piece has been finished for about 15 months I would say. And even though I sanded first, and I waited at least two weeks before I waxed it (I didn't have any wax at the time), I can still SCRATCH the paint off with a fingernail.   To me this just reinforces what I said in my post on better DIY chalkpaint about how important it is to use a high adhesion paint as well as following the other steps.  Im not worried about it, because the piece is just for us and we are careful with it.  But if I had a do-over, I certainly would not use BEHR. The small scratches in the picture below are ones I made with my fingernail months after the piece was done.  The longer ones/corner were on purpose.

I don't usually stage my pieces with a TV on it, but we actually do use it as a media console so I wasn't about to lug it away.  We use all the drawers for dvds and other nic knacks and the middle cupboard section houses our big bass speaker. It makes a great pop of colour in our mostly gray, white and black living room. The wallpaper was just done over Christmas.  I was working on a large china cabinet(HERE)for a client and used the same paper in a different colour on the inside back piece.  I loved it so much I bought the same paper in gray/white for us.