Wallpaper and Gray Dresser

 
A new piece to share!  This is part of a trio set which is solid wood.  Great vintage furniture. I love it.  I was very indecisive about what to do with this piece. I knew I wanted to do something a little more unique, but I wasn't feeling all that inspired.

 
During this time of quiet contemplation, Mr. Chuckles and I repainted a good portion of our house.  We went with a soft gray and also updated a geometric feature wall we have with some new colours.  It all turned out great (although it took the better part of a week).  One night, exhausted on the couch I was admiring my living room wall paper when I Eureka'd that it would look great on the dresser.

 
I still had a little bit left over from wallpapering the living room and decided to put it to use.  I first sanded and primed the drawer and then cut the wall paper so that the pattern was continuous over the three drawers.

 
I painted the opposite side of the drawers with a mid-tone gray that would pull the gray out of the paper.  I used chalkpaint as I wanted a soft romantic feel.

 
I painted the wrap of the piece in a soft gray, it pulls a little white in the pictures, but it is a very soft gray.

 
The original wood hardware was painted in the same soft gray as the wrap and protected with satin sheen polyacrylic.  I hand buffed the metal fastners to a soft gold.

 
The gray lines on the wallpaper has a lovely soft metallic reflective sheen which isn't remotely visible in this picture.

 

This is a before of the matching tallboy as I forgot to snap a before of the six-drawer.

Contemporary-meets-Vintage

This dresser took me to the brink and back.  I was nearly ready to pack in my paint brushes for good.  I cant be certain, but Im think it took me about 15-20 hours to refinish.  Way tooooo long.  Oh my word. This is the dresser I said I was going to pop a bottle of bubbly when she was all done.  Yep, it was that bad.  I needed alchohol in a big way at the end of this project.

That is what she looked like before.  She wasnt bad, but I knew I wanted to go for a contemporary - meets - vintage vibe, and those swirly little details and pipe-shaped wooden pulls were not going to cut the mustard.

Although I think she turned out great.  I am not so sure it was worth all the trouble.  Being honest here.

Ok, so lets talk 'steps' in this transformation.  First, we stripped the top down (to read about this experience click 'here'). Then we sanded smooth with the orbital, as well as sanding the rest of the dresser.

Secondly we had to fill all the holes on the drawers, there were 6 on each drawer.  This took two coats of wood filler, with sanding between each coat.

Because I opted to remove the Nike 'swooshes', I had a lot of little nail holes to fill.  These were finicky! Every time I thought I had them perfectly sanded, I would prime and do a coat of paint, only to realize that I could still see the holes.  I filled them three times before I was happy.  

I bought new hardware, I knew I wanted something that was gold, simple, contemporary yet still vintage.

I restained the top in a custom mix featuring walnut with some orangey hues.  I was surprised that the top didn't go as dark as I expected.  But I actually like the lightness of it as it shows the grain nicely.  I protected with tung oil and a coat of paste wax.

Initially I left the inside of the cupboard door white, but I wasn't happy with it, so I modpodged on some gray/white contemporary paper for a little bit of interest and 'wow' factor.

I had to change out the legs too.  The back legs were great, but the front legs had this weird diamond shape to them.  I wanted simple and clean lines, so they simply wouldn't do.  Four new legs please.

Big exhale here. I don't mean to whinge, but man, this girl was a lot more work than I anticipated!  I am treating myself by doing a quick and easy dresser next with lots of rustic character to it.  Cant wait!  White is so time consuming.  I did two coats of primer, and 4 coats of paint!

Off to drink the champers now!