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.

Steampunk Ornate Dresser

 Isn't this dresser cool?  It was absolutely huge (like almost 8 feet) and I loved the raised detailing and the angled doors.  Super unique. I used a very dark charcoal chalk style paint on this one as I wanted it to have an imperfect mottled look to the finish.

It had really cool little feet, they looked very steampunky to me, which is why I'm calling this my steampunk dresser.

The light catches the angled doors so nicely.  This piece was so big it completely took up my staging area, I could barely get the whole thing in the picture.  Don't you love those little insect-looking legs peeking out the bottom.  I kind of expect it to lift its heft and start tip toeing away.

I did a light distress on the edges to complete the look and I clearcoated the top and waxed the remainder of the piece.  Hardware is original but updated with gold.

A Little Free Antique Dresser in Gray

Just a little post today.  I picked up this adorable petite antique dresser on the curbside with a FREE sign attached to it.  Yes please!  I went back and grabbed Mr. Chuckles and the Mazda and ushered her into the back.

 

I opted to paint it in a gray chalk paint because it gets good coverage and is a nice neutral colour.  I painted the original wood knobs in white for a nice little contrast.

 



 
There was some cracking on one of the middle drawers which is visible in the picture above, I glued and clamped it, but I didn't try to wood fill or smooth it out.  I didn't think it would be that noticeable..which it kind of is.  Grrr.

She is fairly narrow which just serves to make her legs look even taller.  Like a tall and gangly (but still adorably cute) teenager. And look at those adorable wooden caster wheels.

 

The before shot gives some insight as to why it was free, but it sanded back really easily.  A nice little find for me. 

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!

 

 

 

Spindle Legged Vanity in Teal

It was love at first sight with this little lady.  Those spindle legs make me swoon like a Southern Belle.  Believe it or not, but this gem was in the burn pile.  A call from Mr. Chuckles' uncle went something like this "if you guys want this vanity you better come quick, because Im throwing her in the fire in the next couple of days."  IN THE FIRE!!!??? How could you burn something so adorable?

So I lit my own fire - underneath Mr. Chuckles' buttocks - and rushed him out the door to go pick her up while I custom mixed up some paint in a muted teal. 

The piece had some painted detailing on the drawer fronts, Mr. Chuckles didn't want me to paint over them, but of course I did.  But in the pic above you can still make them out in an embossed kind of way.  Pretty neat, and as a bonus Mr. Chuckles sort of got his way.

It is so delicate and feminine.  In all honesty, when we agreed to pick up the vanity we had no idea what it looked like.  I figured it was some waterfall style chunky one (which Im not a huge fan of). So when I came home and saw this perched in the garage, I was over the moon.

So was Miss Do-As-I-Please. She couldn't wait to get her paws all over her.  She particularly likes the contact paper I put inside the drawers.

She is settling nicely into her new home (our spare bedroom).  She looks great mixed amongst the greys and whites in the room.

I traded out the old metal knobs for some nice cream coloured ones for a better contrast.

Here is the before!

Stripping in the Cold!

Well I did it, I finally took the plunge. After numerous pieces of mind numbing, elbow aching orbital sanding dust clogging up my eyes, I finally decided to try stripping.

The piece was the beauty below. She received quite a transformation and required a hhhheck of a lot of work. But no whinging in this post, nope, this post is dedicated to the virtues of "Circa 1850" which stepped in and took over when my elbow was so exhausted it was bending the wrong way.



For some reason, the finish on the top of this piece resisted sanding. I tried, it didn't yield. I tried harder, it dug its heels in. You can see from the picture below how far my 35 minute effort got me. About 1/8th of the way through the top. 'No thanks,' I said. 'No thanks,' Mr Chuckles' seconded.



So it was off to RONA to wade into the slippery pool of stripping aides. They only had one product. One. It was fairly priced at $11 for the can, but I was a little doubtful that this particular can just happened to be the magical brew I was looking for. How wrong I would be!

I handed over the cash, had an encouraging nod from the salesman, than the can and I drove home together eyeing each other up suspiciously. 'Really?' I thought. Is this really going to magically eat through that ridiculously thick finish?



It did. I cajoled Mr. Chuckles into helping me, handed him over the pink 'domestic goddess' gloves and stood well back with some goggles protecting my peepers. He carefully opened the over-pressurized can and set about slopping the stuff on with a paint brush. We went inside (it was cold in the garage) had a cookie, watched a commercial or two, and went back out to find this.



Mr. Chuckles grabbed his spatula and started scraping with gusto. I couldn't believe how easily the stuffed flopped right off in great big leathery chunks. Our eyes locked in mutual astonishment. 'Can I have a try...' I ventured. But no way was Mr. Chuckles handing over his spatula. He was having too much fun.






In total, we spent about 4 minutes scraping off the entire top of the dresser. Well worth $11. After it dried out, we still smoothed things out with a once over with the orbital. But it took minutes, not hours.



So there you have it.  No need to tear a hole through your elbow anymore.  Fling that orbital sander in the corner and grab a can of the good stuff.

Oh, and by happy accident I discovered that it works a treat on getting old dried paint out of brushes.  You know, those ones that you forgot to wash and left sitting on top of a milk crate somewhere only to discover three days later that it was stiff as a board. Well, I have found the cure.

One for the Stag N Doe

What a week.  I have been working painstakingly on a dresser that got quite the overhaul, and some matching nightstands.  It is one of those pieces that turns out to be ten times the amount of work than you expected.  Tomorrow I am buying a nice bottle of bubbly which I will uncork with vigor when it is all done. Not long now. I can see the light.

But lets save that post for another day.  Instead, lets talk about this beauty below.  She is a nice antique piece with a matching mirror.  I decided to donate a piece for Mr. Chuckle's sister's stag n' doe party in lead up to her pending nuptials.  They are raffling off a lot of prizes, and I thought, 'Hey. why not a piece of furniture?'.  So it was with that in mind that I kept my eye out for a nice piece.

I found this one at a steal.  It was at my favorite re-store.  I must have been quick that day, because usually these types of pieces get snapped up quickly.  I was so enthused I walked out without paying.  So literally, a steal.

I did pay on my next visit though, guilty conscience be damned.  It was in rough shape.  Mr. Chuckles and I had to do a lot of sanding and wood filling to bring this lady back to the land of the living. I believe she made a guest appearance on the Walking Dead at some stage in her past.

I love the little key hole details.  They are real locks too.  No keys, sadly. I know a lot of bloggers put knobs on these dressers, which I really like..but Im also a big fan of ring pulls. So I gave them a bit of a buff and left them original.

These pictures are appalling, I know.  I was in a rush.  The camera was cranky.  Dresser wouldn't sit still.  Bad photo session all round.

A bit of the distressing detail. I kept it pretty light all round.  I should also mention that I turned this into a chalk paint using PoP.  I like the patina of chalk paint/wax on these old pieces (I usually use latex acrylic and polyurethane).  I also waxed with MINWAX dark wax.  No clear.  But I find the Minwax dark wax to be subtle compared to most dark waxes, so you dont get that 'staining' in the paint finish.

And below is the before.  Certainly wouldn't stand out in a Miss America Pageant.  But hey, a little bit of make-up, some fancy lighting, and just a bit of well placed Hollywood tape, and whammo, say hello to Angelina Jolie.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

French Baronet in Charcoal

I picked up an adorable solid wood Baronet french style set the other day.  And it was FREE.  Yay!  It was painted in that off white that would have looked adorable in a little girls room 40 years ago.

I picked up a tall 4-drawer dresser, a nightstand, and a six drawer dresser.  I thought about repainting them white and keeping with the little girls theme.  But I just didn't feel like it.  Nope, I wanted to do it in a deep charcoal.

Well, I did the nightstand and the tall dresser in charcoal, but I did the six-drawer in mint and white (pics to come soon). I had low expectations of what was going to lie beneath that old white finish, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it was solid wood!  Nice!

I left the inside of the nightstand white to add a little contrast with the charcoal gray.

I painted out the hardware white, it was originally a two-toned white/gold finish, and I didn't mind it, but I wanted the contrast of the white.  

This charcoal gray I used is a flat paint, and it just doesn't accept wax well.  The wax doesn't absorb into it the way it does chalk paint.  I knew I wanted to top coat with wax on this piece, not poly, so I did two coats of my regular gray flat paint, and the third coat I turned into DIY chalkpaint using PoP.  I worked perfectly!

After the chalkpaint coat dried, I sanded it down to smooth out the roughness and applied the wax. The lustre is perfect, a great hand-rubbed sheen.

Here is the pair of them together.  Aren't they handsome!

Here are a couple of before pics.  Although they look like they are in great condition, the finish was chipping and scratched.  In short, they looked their age (and not in a good way).