Just another two-toned MCM

And Voila!  Another two-toned mcm.  This piece was awesome, I loved the wood pulls that stick out at both the top and the bottom of each drawer, it doesn't come out well in the pics, but in real life they add some great visual interest.

The piece itself was in really good shape.  There were a few dings and nicks in the top and sides of the unit, so after sanding back, I filled with two coats of wood filler, sanding well after each to smooth things out.  That took care of the problem and she looked good as new!

After cleaning off the sanding dust I primed the entire body of the dresser with 2 coats of GRIPPER.  I only started using this primer recently and I really love it.  It gives fantastic coverage and has awesome adhesion. I didn't sand back to the bare wood on this one, just a good deglossing, so fortunately I didnt need to whip out the Zinsser BIN for bleed through.

The drawer facings were in great condition and they have a wonderful colour that features warm amber/reddish tones, so I just gave them a good clean and left them original.

I considered staining the legs, but opted to paint the out instead to create a sense of airiness under the dresser.   I then painted with my Dulux Diamond in Pearl (2 coats) which I custom tinted to a creamy off-white.

She turned out great and was definitely worth the drive to pick up!

Two-toned Hollywood Regency Dresser

I picked up this dresser a while ago and it has been sitting dejected in the corner of the garage ever since.  I wasn't neglecting it out of spite, it was just that I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it.

At first I thought gray, but than I reconsidered because the wood grain was just so lovely.  I didn't want to paint out the entire thing and cover it up. 

Than I thought 'hey, how about a 2-toned!'.  But again, I didn't want to cover up that grain on the top..so at last, after much deliberation, I decided I would do a reverse 2-tone.  I decided to paint out the drawer facings in white, and re-stain the body of the unit in dark walnut (I usually do it the opposite way).

The finish came out great.  I protected with tung oil, followed by a few coats of wipe on poly.  the result is a nice low-sheen finish.

I really love this piece, I think she looks very chic and has that great retro feel as well.

I left the inside of the cupboard original wood (it was in great condition) to tie in with the body of the dresser.

Here is the before.  She was in excellent shape.  There were divots and nics though, so it did warrant a strip and re-stain.

Pair of Two-Toned MCM Beauties!

I picked up this beautiful pair of dressers from a very kind gentleman who was moving out of town to be closer to his girlfriend.  He decided to sell up most of his stuff prior to leaving.  I love MCM pieces (doesn’t everyone?) and jumped at the chance to pick up these two beauties. 

First up is the six-drawer which features two drawers with horizontal trim and four drawers with vertical trim for a nice contrast.  I also love the little white piece which separates the bottom drawer halves. 

 They were in very good ‘vintage condition’ already, but the tops and sides had some markings.  Because of this I decided to do a two-tone look which I have done previously (here).  I used an off-white as I find a pure white a bit to stark next to the warmth of the wood.

I removed the drawers and sanded the body of the dresser, I also removed the feet in order to sand and paint them too. I primed first and then did about four coats of white paint (any wonder why I hate painting in white?).  But it was worth it, because I love how good the off-white looks with the walnut drawers.

The drawers were in very good shape with just a few small markings here and there, however, they had a real 70s glossy finish on them.  I decided to lightly sand back the drawer facings to remove that shine, and then do a light coat of gel stain in dark walnut. 

The gel stain didn’t really change the colour much, but the finish is a lot flatter and more contemporary looking now. 

I love the ribbed detailing on the drawer facings, much more unique than just a straight type of panel.

Next up is a frenchy dresser in (what I hope) will be a lovely shade of green!  Have a great weekend.

Charcoal and White Dresser

I knew as soon as I saw this little gem what I wanted to do with it.  I have been wanting to do a charcoal gray with white highlighting for a little while now, and this dresser was the perfect candidate for that vision with its great trim work on the drawer facings.

I love the low streamline look of it, and I knew it would be a great modern-contemporary piece with crisp lines and no distressing.

I also really like the original hardware, squarish and blocky, it reminds me of campaign dressers.

There was two pieces of trim missing which the original owner had lost, so Mr. Chuckles helped me source some new trim and cut it to size.  I also decided to go with four circle pulls across the top, original it only had two in the top middle drawer. I thought it would look more consistent if they went all the way across the top.

I have used this colour before (here) and love how the dark gray looks when it is topped with wipe on poly. It offers a great low lustre hand-rubbed sheen.

Painting out the trim was the most time consuming step.  I had to tape it, because I couldn’t get a clean line freehanding.  I taped all the drawers, then I did a base coat of the gray to seal the tape line, and topped it with three coats of white.  Unfortunately I did get some bleed through in a few places, but it was easily touched up by hand.

I love the legs on this piece.  I really love furniture with legs, so it was nice to get a piece with them already attached!

Happy Sunday everyone!

The Before!

Midcentury Modern set In Gray

I picked up this set as an entire bedset for FREE off a kind gentleman who was moving out of province: 2 nightstands, tallboy and longboy.  Unfortunately the long boy was in such bad structural condition that I donated it to goodwill.  It was bowed and sagging in the middle and all the drawers banged into each other.  Too bad, because it was pretty cool looking.  I have worked on pieces before with bad bones, and it always drives me bonkers in the end. It drives Mr. Chuckles bonkers too as he is the one who ends up helping me fix them!

But alas, I rescued the other three pieces.  I went for deep charcoal as my base.  I knew I wanted to do a fun little detail, but I didn't have much time to get these guys done before I go away on holidays, so I needed to keep it simple.

 I love striping on MCM pieces, I think it really suits the trendiness of them and compliments their clean lines.  I was inspired by some pieces in blogland that had large and small stripes side-by-side.  I thought this looked cool, yet still pretty simple, so I opted for that.

 I custom mixed up the 'white' - it is actually pure white ASCP with a tiny bit of the charcoal grey mixed in, just to take the edge of the brilliance a bit.  I used painters tape to do the stripes, doing a coat of my base colour first (charcoal), and then doing two coats of the white (helps prevent bleed through to do the basecoat colour first).  Little tip for ya!

This set has pretty cool wood pulls.  When I have all 3 dressers lined up together for a picture they remind me of Batman!  Something about the way the curve.  They are almost a bit Gothic looking.

That's all for me today.  It has a busy and super-duper hot week.  Its amazing the paint even dried on these bad-boys! Our humidex was consistently above 40 celcius. 

Refinished MCM Danish Credenza

I picked this gorgeous girl up from my favorite re-store.  It was in great condition, apart from the top which was very scratched up.

It was way too lovely to paint.  Initially I thought I might only re-stain the top, but after I did that, the sides and front sliding panels didn't look so great.  So I sanded them back and re-stained them as well.

I ended up leaving the drawers original though, they were in very good condition and I like the little bit of contrast they give to the rest of the unit which is dark walnut.

Lots of aerial shots, the dresser was too long for me to get the whole thing in the shot otherwise. It is about 79" long.

Here is original pic below, as you can see, it was in pretty great shape to begin with!  A lucky little find for me.

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