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!

Union Jack: The Sequel

Round two!  My other union jack dresser was pretty rustic and vintage inspired.  I went for a different feel with this one.  I wanted it to feel a little playful, a little retro, a little 'Andy Warhol pop culture'.

I used a lighter shade of blue, almost a duck egg, but combined that with the bold red.  Instead of painting the whole body of the dresser blue, I opted for white to keep it light and fresh.

  

The hardware is shiny silver.  I love the retro feel the little knobs give.  

Its pretty neat how you can work one flag so many ways!  Ive seen so many cool renditions of the Union Jack in Blogland.

linking up to savvysouthernstyle

Very Whitewashed Grey Dresser

This dresser was a long and drawn out affair (think Victor and Nikky from Y&R)  I began by painting it a light blue, but the finished effect looked ill suited to anything but a nursery.  The plan was to have it in our bedroom, so nursery was definitely out of the question.

Phase two was to paint over the blue with grey.  It looked better.  A little.  But it still didn't have any pazzaz and it just didn't quite get me excited.

Phase three was to whitewash over the grey, ok I started to like it a little more, but it needed some extra contrast in my mind, bring on Phase four..

Phase four was to stain the top a very very dark chocolate (almost black) to amp up the contrast a bit.

It is a great addition to the muted tones of our bedroom and provides ample storage for Mr. Chuckles' unmentionables.

The cute vintage pictures are framed advertisements from old 1950s 'Life' magazines passed down to us from Mr. Chuckle's grandfather. I love the one of Santa holding a typewriter.

A close up of the whitewash technique.  I painted over the knobs as well, and then did some light distressing to show the brass through.  

I haven't decided if I will distress the dresser.  What do you think?