Antique cabinet

Isn't this piece cute.  We were given this by a relative who had it stored in their musty basement.  I didn't snap a before, but trust me, it was brown, boring and dingy.  I knew I needed to brighten her up.

I has a great time playing around with the colours and think it turned out beautifully.  It is certainly much nicer then where it started from.

Watercolor French dresser

I have been having a love affair with watercolor over the past few months and have completed several dressers that have a watercolor feel to them.  With this one I went a little more bold using blues and greens, and I just love it.

This piece was originally going into our living room as a couch backer, but I won the most beautiful French armoire at an auction, so this piece has been given the boot.

I added some cream knobs with a gold metal overlay, very chic.

This piece is for sale on my ETSY shop RetiquedByRaeBond

Weathered Armoire with Vintage Paper

Hi everyone, here is my latest piece!  NOW. Before I go into details I first want to say that this is the first piece that I took pictures of against my new 'staging wall' which is in the garage.  I love taking pictures against my black and white floral wallpaper, but Mr Chuckle's and I were getting a bit weary of brining every single piece into the house to take pictures of..So, I thought I would try something new.
 

 
I am not particularly happy with the outcome of these pictures.  I tried a couple of different approaches to how much light I was letting in, but it still isn't an ideal result.  I will have to keep playing and trying to tweak a bit with future pieces.  So I apologize for the less than amazing pictures (not that my previous pictures were that much better! - they just had a prettier backdrop).
 

 
I don't usually work on armoires because they are not my favorite style of furniture, but I came across this piece as part of a matching set with the piece I finished in navy and gold (here) and figured I may as well take on both.
 

 
I knew I wanted to do something using my vintage Eaton's wallpaper which I have used on the inside of a few pieces, but I haven't really used on the outside of one yet.  I just love this paper - both the colours and the design are beautiful.   It is a pre-pasted wallpaper (yay!) so it was so easy to apply.
 

 
I custom mixed up a blueish green to match one of the colours in the wallpaper.  In the jar it looked more greenish, but surprisingly it came out a little more blue on the piece.  I know this because my good ol' neighbor caught sight of it and said ' now you can't tell me that one isn't blue!'.  If you have read this blog for a while, than you have met this neighbor before with some of the funny blunder comments he has made (I still like him despite this).
 

 
I knew I wanted rustic with heavy distressing on this piece because I haven't done a piece like this in a while and felt like getting a bit whimsical.  I have done a similar piece (here) many months ago, but I was ready for another turn.
 

 
I distressed heavily and wonderfully the wood grain poking through has a great 'orange' colour to it which ties in perfectly with the orange on the paper.  I also highlighted with light blue, mint, white and yellow.  A whole wash of colours mix up to make this piece special.
 

 
I wanted some extra height, so I added the legs - not the most traditional on an armoire like this, but they are removable, so if they aren't to everyone's taste, they are easily removed.
 

 
I used chalkpaint on this piece, and I sealed with polyurethane as I have been doing a lot lately.  The original hardware was spruced up with a dab of rub n buff!
 

 
I did a lot of heavy distressing, as well as some whitewashing on the side.
 

 
 Here is a close up of the great paper!

 

And the before!