A New Topcoat Technique and a Lottery win!

I won the lottery today!  It is great timing because Mr. Chuckles and I are about to take off for sunny Cuba in a week's time.  Sure, I only won $26, but hey, that will pay for the cost of the spray tan I will get before we go.  Yes, I get spray tans...not that often, as I find my life isn't exciting enough to need 'tan' skin on a regular basis.  But, I do like to get them before I head off on a vacation to a sunny destination when I have been covered up in layers of clothes for the past five months. I find with the spray tan I am not in such a hurry to play catch-up on my tan in the first two days of being on vacation (which inevitably results in a really bad burn).  By the time the spray tan wears off I am usually starting to get a bit of a natural glow.

 
Speaking of top coats, I used a new technique on this piece, which I must say, is an absolutely stunning piece of furniture!  It is so grand, and was surprisingly manufactured right here in my very own city.  It stands at 36" tall and is 20" deep.  Most of my 9 drawers stand at 36" - but only after I custom add legs to them!  Prior to that they are a dwarfy 31".  I like a short stature on MCM pieces, but on the chunky 70s dressers I find they look way better with extra height.  Personal preference I suppose.
 

 
But obviously this amazon didn't need extra height because she was already so tall! I went to pick her up and realized there was a very good chance she wouldn't fit in the Mazda 3, the gentleman enquired where I live, and by sheer good fortune he was heading to my very street later that same afternoon for a birthday party!  Pretty coincidental in a city of 500,000 people!  So he actually brought her to me. Very kind.

 
The least fun part was the sanding.  Sanding French provincial furniture is the most labor intensive out of all furniture.  So many god darn curves and bevels and lips and ledges.  Urgh.  It took about two hours to sand her down, vacuum and wipe her clean.
 

 
Next step was to prime her up with some tinted primer.  Two coats and a bunch of dry time later I was ready to paint.= (aka the fun part). Oh, and the hardware was giving a dose of Rub-n-Buff in antique gold.
 

 
I used a cobalt colour I love, but I also mixed in some navy blue and black tint to achieve a more navy colour. I painted on about three or four coats in a satin finish.  It turned out really nice, but it was missing that 'pow' sheen that I get when I use wipe on poly.  The problem is, the last time I used WOP I had such a hard time getting an even finish on the top that I ended up doing WAY too many coats.  I just wasn't mentally or physically ready to go through that again so soon.  Still licking the wounds and all...
 

 
I remembered reading in a wood working forum that someone found that tung oil finish gave a less streaky result than  WOP.  I just happened to have a can on the shelf in the basement so I thought Id give it a whirl.  I used an old rag to wipe it on, and then I used a second rag to virtually wipe it all back off, just leaving a tiny hint of the product, but enough to give me the subtle sheen that I wanted.  It took quite a long time to fully dry (despite me wiping almost all of the product back off), but in the end it produced a more high-end result than if I had just left the paint un-topcoated.
 
Anyways, I am really happy and I think I will try this technique on another piece in the future. But for now I would recommend it, particularly on a darkly painted piece of furniture as tung oil finish will amber over time (so DON"T use it on a light coloured piece).

 

The before!

Miss Frenchy Wears Teal

Isnt this a lovely looking french provincial dresser.  I drove a ways to pick her up from a slightly odd man.  It was dark and dreary in the room, so I was happy to get out of there quickly.

When I got home, I learned a valuable lesson.  Don’t let odd men in dingy dark settings deter you from really ‘checking out’ the piece.  Because it wasn’t until I got this beast home that I realized it was….eeek…laminate. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I have painted laminate in the past, and I will paint it again no doubt, but I certainly avoid it unless the dresser is either free, or a super-duper steal.  This thing was neither of those.  I didn’t overpay, but I don’t think I would have handed over that much had I known it was laminate. So lesson learnt!  Always check for presence of laminate.

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Anyways, onto the fun stuff.  I sanded (lightly) and made sure not to go through to the MDF.  I primed with a good adhesion primer which I tinted to a similar colour as my top coat. 

When I came back a couple of hours later I realized I had left the garage door open, and apparently someone had stopped in for a visit because there were some strange markings in the finish.

I was able to apprehend the culprit pretty quickly though.  Blue paws tell no lies.

After priming, I did two coats of a colour I custom mixed.  I was inspired by a piece by Estuary Designs and wanted to mix up a similar colour.  In real life she is more teal-green, my camera favours the blue tones and I can't quite capture the colour accurately.

I gave the hardware a subtle spritz with some gold spray paint just to refresh them a tad.  

And here is the before.  Looks like real wood, or at least wood veneer, doesn't it!