Weathered Turquoise Night Stands

It felt so good to do these pieces with their wonderful imperfections.  Lately I have been doing so many pieces with no distressing that I really need a perfect finish in order to get the 'look' I'm going for.  So when I picked up this three piece set (9 drawer pictures to follow) I thought,  'Im blowing the dust off the orbital and doing some serious distressing'.

 



 
Its not that distressing pieces is easier...it can take a long time to distress, particularly if you are doing it by hand, but its just a little less worrisome because if there is a little flaw in the finish you don't have to worry and redo it.  I actually just recently finished a nine drawer in that deep blue cobalt colour I have been using a lot lately and I think in total I did 8 coats on the top.  I kept having problems getting a perfect finish, and then I had trouble with my polyurethane topcoat looking streaky and I just wasn't happy with it.  8, maybe 9 coats later I finally nailed it.  Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results? 

 
These beauties only took two coats.  Much easier.  I used Cottage Paint chalkpaint I had in a cream colour and I added some tint to get this blue-based turquoise. I painted it on roughly, deliberately missing parts here and there as it would make distressing easier later.

 
I used wax on these because there is a strong oak grain.  I am not a huge fan of wax, I find it really streaky, but as I have mentioned before I don't mind using it on weathered looking pieces, I also don't mind using it on 'oak' furniture as it doesn't look as streaky over the strong oak grain.

 
I did all of my sanding before waxing. I like a good dust storm.  I did wear a protective mask to save the lungs though.  I used the orbital on some parts, and used a piece of coarse sand paper on others and did it by hand.

 
Some of the nice oak grain.

 

 
The before.

Weathered Armoire with Vintage Paper

Hi everyone, here is my latest piece!  NOW. Before I go into details I first want to say that this is the first piece that I took pictures of against my new 'staging wall' which is in the garage.  I love taking pictures against my black and white floral wallpaper, but Mr Chuckle's and I were getting a bit weary of brining every single piece into the house to take pictures of..So, I thought I would try something new.
 

 
I am not particularly happy with the outcome of these pictures.  I tried a couple of different approaches to how much light I was letting in, but it still isn't an ideal result.  I will have to keep playing and trying to tweak a bit with future pieces.  So I apologize for the less than amazing pictures (not that my previous pictures were that much better! - they just had a prettier backdrop).
 

 
I don't usually work on armoires because they are not my favorite style of furniture, but I came across this piece as part of a matching set with the piece I finished in navy and gold (here) and figured I may as well take on both.
 

 
I knew I wanted to do something using my vintage Eaton's wallpaper which I have used on the inside of a few pieces, but I haven't really used on the outside of one yet.  I just love this paper - both the colours and the design are beautiful.   It is a pre-pasted wallpaper (yay!) so it was so easy to apply.
 

 
I custom mixed up a blueish green to match one of the colours in the wallpaper.  In the jar it looked more greenish, but surprisingly it came out a little more blue on the piece.  I know this because my good ol' neighbor caught sight of it and said ' now you can't tell me that one isn't blue!'.  If you have read this blog for a while, than you have met this neighbor before with some of the funny blunder comments he has made (I still like him despite this).
 

 
I knew I wanted rustic with heavy distressing on this piece because I haven't done a piece like this in a while and felt like getting a bit whimsical.  I have done a similar piece (here) many months ago, but I was ready for another turn.
 

 
I distressed heavily and wonderfully the wood grain poking through has a great 'orange' colour to it which ties in perfectly with the orange on the paper.  I also highlighted with light blue, mint, white and yellow.  A whole wash of colours mix up to make this piece special.
 

 
I wanted some extra height, so I added the legs - not the most traditional on an armoire like this, but they are removable, so if they aren't to everyone's taste, they are easily removed.
 

 
I used chalkpaint on this piece, and I sealed with polyurethane as I have been doing a lot lately.  The original hardware was spruced up with a dab of rub n buff!
 

 
I did a lot of heavy distressing, as well as some whitewashing on the side.
 

 
 Here is a close up of the great paper!

 

And the before!