Distressed Turquoise Buffet Dresser

UPDATE!  I was grumpily sipping on my coffee at 7am yesterday when my bleary eyes turned on 'Candace Tells All'.  A double take was in order because I thought this dresser below was making its new home in one of her clients living room.  It took me a good 3 seconds to determine if it was in fact my dresser.  It wasn't. Sigh. How neat would that have been.  The dresser she was using was so similar in both style and colour. Good taste Candace!

 

 

You know it's a good day when you stumble across a piece of furniture you love, only to find out that it is.....FREE!!  I scored this gem at my favorite re-store just when she was about to be loaded onto a truck bound for the dump.  Naturally I flapped my arms about and gestured over to the my trunk - open, willing and spacious.

I have been missing my turquoise lately, having been doing a lot of whites and other colours.  So this was my chance to dust off the lid of my favorite shade of turquoise and work some magic. 

 I did a couple of base coats and then I brushed on some yellow and cobalt accents.  They don't come out too wonderfully with the poor quality of my camera phone - but they are there.  I assure you. ;)

I love the legs on this dresser.  Very grand and statement making.

You can see a bit of the cobalt and yellow in this picture.  If you squint your eyes.

 A bit of the heavy distressing can be seen in the close-up shot below.

That's all for today.  Have a nice one.  

I remembered to snap a before shot of this one.  

Blue-grass Inspired Rustic MCM Dresser

This dresser was pretty ugly, Im sure you will agree when you see the picture below. The mirror is pretty cool though, I found the same one at a Salvation Army and it now hangs in my bedroom.

The Before

 But back to the dresser, I had a vision of a really cool distressed blue/black rustic looking blue-grass kinda thang.  Sometimes your vision turns out exactly as you expected, other times it doesnt.  This was one of those times I wasnt over the moon with how it turned out.

I thought the top looked a bit too much like marble, and the detailing on the front middle that I thought was pretty neat when I picked the dresser up, didn't really do it for me after I was finished.  

I kept working, and re-working the dresser (adding colour, distressing, more distressing, etc) until I was a little bit happy with how it looked.

In hindsight, I wish I had traded out the hardware for something with more personality.  Instead I opted to paint the hardware out black, and I think it disappears to much against the black drawers.

But that is the way it goes, Im sure we all have some pieces that we love more than others!

Bermuda, Bahama, Come On Pretty Mama - MCM again!

Im gonna be blunt here.  Bahama did not live up to her name when I first cast eyes on her.  She was ugly, she stunk like a cheap hooker who smoked too much, and she was scattered in pieces.  Literally. She was on the floor of some guy's garage all shewn about in smelly disarray.

It didn't take me long to figure out why.  Her drawers were a maze, all nine of them.  She was one of those finicky little pieces that was designed in such a way that each drawer only fit into one slot (despite the fact that they all seemed to look the same).  Mr. Chuckles, the owner, and me, all spent about 10 minutes crawling over each other like a bad game of twister trying to fit Bahama's bits back into her chest so we could pack her up in the hatchback.

If I had been handing over money for her, I most likely would have politely said 'no thank you', turned on my heel and quickly scuppered off, but she was a freebie, so I just couldn't say no.  We strapped her into the car and brought her home to my salon for the big makeover.

Having a stamp on her backside that said "Bahama" inspired me to paint her a bright, tropical colour. I settled on a turquoise blue (suprise, suprise!) contrasted with pure white.

I like the way she turned out, for some reason she makes me want to go bowling. She definitely has a 1950s vibe about her.

Stunning Column Dresser

I was lucky enough to find the long dresser and the matching night stands for this.  I painted them in a corresponding fashion using my favorite turquoise with ASCP florence underneath.  

I love how the green peaks out beneath the Blues.  I did a fair bit of distressing on this to let the wood poke through.  I changed out the hardware as one handle was missing off the original and I couldnt find a match.  I like how the gold contrasts so well with the turquoise.

Superbly ornate 6 drawer dresser

I fell in love with this piece when it cast its sad eyes in my direction.  Located in a dusty old used shop, it was brown, dirty and old,  it was instant chemistry.

I gave her the usual overhaul, and I just love how lovely it turned out.  So big and so bold!  I think the hardware is so cool. She is a blue turquoise and features some distressing to show the awesome wood through.  I love the texture of these pieces (Spannish Style?) and snap them up whenever I find one.  The vertical hardware is so unique. 

Ariel the Mermaid

I love chunky bold colours and use a lot of teal, turquoise and shades of blue and green in my work. 

 I found this dresser and absolutely loved it, I used a custom mix of green and white to get the colour(s) desired. For the casing, I used ASCP in Florence, and for the drawer facings, I mixed some pure white into the mix to make it a bit lighter.  

Discovering it was too low the ground to be functional, I had Mr. Chuckles help me put these ornate and very delicate gold feet to add some height.  I love the result!   I call her Ariel the Mermaid because she reminds me of the deep sea.

I highlighted the facing trim with cobalt blue, some white and a bit of black as well.  It created a beautiful, time worn patina.

I love the contrast of that big sturdy dresser being held up by those delicate little feet.