Wallpaper and Gray Dresser

 
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.

Two tone MCM with a Minny-me

The latest MCM.  I love this piece. Especially with the sliding cross-hatched panel!  I have taken pictures both with and without it, and I prefer the extra interest the piece has with it.  Probably because I have done this look so many times with the dark drawers and white body, so having this little panel is something different, and I like it!

I'm also a big fan of the legs.  They still embody the MCM style, but they have a geometric uniqueness that can be hard to come by.

As far as the transformation goes, I painted the legs and body in off-white.  the drawers were cleaned and spruced up, but they have the original finish because they were in very good condition.  The finish is a dark walnut, it looks a little 'warm' in the pictures.

And here is the minny-me!  If was unfortunate that the set only came as a pair.  I would have loved to have had a matching nightstand.  Minny-me is lonely.  I love the little panel cross-hatched bit on the little nightstand.  It isn't removable or slide-able like it is on the big piece, but it is really classy. 

Below are a few more pictures with the sliding panel on the piece.  There are actually 2 sliding panels, but I think I prefer it with just one of them on.  

Its great when you find a piece that is versatile!  I think this piece could be great in the living room, but still also be awesome in the bedroom with the nightstand working in tandem.

Two-tone tallboy with chevron pulls

This was such a great vintage find, and although it needed a lot of work, it was worth it in the end.

When I went to see it, it was in worse condition than the picture suggested (all of you on E-Harmony know what I mean here).  But I could see the potential, so I carted her old bones home anyway.

I love me some two-tone, so that is what I decided to go for.  I stripped all of the bits that I left original wood.  Fortunately there was no thick topcoat, so it all came off pretty easily with the orbital.  I restained and sealed with satin sheen oil-based poly.

I painted the chevron wooden pulls, and the sides a contrasting soft white.  I have done this look lots of times, and I still adore it.  But funnily enough, my neighbor came round for a chat and once again put his foot in it by asking me what colour I intended to paint it! (yep, this is after I had just finished it) (and yep, this is the second time he has done this to me!  Previously he looked at one of my turquoise pieces and asked what colour I intended to paint it......??????  Huh????).  I told him he was two-for-two, and if he did it a third time I was going to hire some local kids to go egg his house.  ;)

A nice shot of my hand. I could be a part-time hand model, I know.

You can see some of the gorgeous wood grain on that top drawer.  So nice!

Mid century modern set

Well Im slowly working my way through my stash of mid century pieces and the garage is starting to exhale again as the stress of containing everything alleviates.  Another problem is arising though - Im accumulating a surplus of dresser mirrors again. Doh!

It was love at first sight with this piece, and worth the one hour drive to pick her up.  She belonged to a lady who obviously loved her, because she was in very good condiiton.  The drawer facings and sides were all pretty great, only the top needed some TLC.

I set about sanding off the entire top.  Because there was not a heavy finish on it, it came off pretty well.  One problem I did encounter was I noticed the sandpaper on my orbital kept 'gumming' up very frequently.  Everytime this happened, the sanding slowed down noticeably and I would change to a fresh piece and it would come off effortlessly until it gummed up again.  So there you go, if you find that your finish is not sanding off well, than it could be because your sand paper is gumming on you.

I suspect the 'gummy' stuff was old furnture polish residue.  In the end I gave the entire top (all 78" of it) an overview sand to remove just the layer of gunge.  I then changed out the sandpaper (again) and the finish came off pretty well then.

I custom mixed up some stain to best try and match the rest of the piece.  I used gel stain.  It turned pretty good.  I then finished with a thick coat of Danish Tung Oil finish which really looks wonderful and matches the low sheen look of the rest of the piece.

These drawers are super-duper long, so the were catching a bit against the sides and each other, so I got the orbital out again and planed them a bit.

I cleaned up the rest of the dresser, and used gel stain to dab at some of the smaller blemishes.  I wanted to keep as much of the original finish as I could.

Next up were the nightstands.  Again, underneath a layer of mould, they were in awesome condition (apart from the tops again).

I used some retro material I picked up for $1 a metre at my favorite restore and lined the drawers.

I sanded back the tops only, and refinished them using the same steps as the long dresser.  The sand paper didn't gum up this time though, so I assume it didn't get the lavish furniture polish treatment that the main dresser did.

I really love this set with the long skinny drawers and the low look.  The credenza is only 27" tall. Very streamlined.

This is for sale on my ETSY shop

Another TWO-TONED MCM Dresser!

Here is my latest installment.  I was lucky to find a few great condition MCM pieces recently!  My garage is currently struggling to contain them all (lucky me!).

I love a great two-tone look, so I decided to do it again on this lovely six-drawer.

I gave the entire body a really good sand, and then put on two coats of primer, before painting on 3-4 coats of off-white.

I use a satin sheen, as I am not a fan of glossy paint.  I used some clear wax to protect and add an extra layer of durability.

For the drawer facings, I sanded them down and topped them with some walnut stain for a great contrasting and contemporary look.

I really love the handles on this piece.  I had a chance to pick up the matching tallboy at a steal, but I hesitated because the condition was a bit drabby-drab.  I might sneak back and see if it is still available though...  

Stay tuned for some more MCM transformations, and maybe some colour too!  Its time for a dose of turquoise!

Charcoal and White Dresser

I knew as soon as I saw this little gem what I wanted to do with it.  I have been wanting to do a charcoal gray with white highlighting for a little while now, and this dresser was the perfect candidate for that vision with its great trim work on the drawer facings.

I love the low streamline look of it, and I knew it would be a great modern-contemporary piece with crisp lines and no distressing.

I also really like the original hardware, squarish and blocky, it reminds me of campaign dressers.

There was two pieces of trim missing which the original owner had lost, so Mr. Chuckles helped me source some new trim and cut it to size.  I also decided to go with four circle pulls across the top, original it only had two in the top middle drawer. I thought it would look more consistent if they went all the way across the top.

I have used this colour before (here) and love how the dark gray looks when it is topped with wipe on poly. It offers a great low lustre hand-rubbed sheen.

Painting out the trim was the most time consuming step.  I had to tape it, because I couldn’t get a clean line freehanding.  I taped all the drawers, then I did a base coat of the gray to seal the tape line, and topped it with three coats of white.  Unfortunately I did get some bleed through in a few places, but it was easily touched up by hand.

I love the legs on this piece.  I really love furniture with legs, so it was nice to get a piece with them already attached!

Happy Sunday everyone!

The Before!