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!

 

 

 

Turquoise Distressed Dresser

This piece was so much fun to work on.  It had so much character with all that ornate detailing, and the hardware is simply swoon worthy!

I felt really lucky to find this piece because a few months ago I responded to an ad for the same set and tried to get the seller to just sell me the dresser (and not the rest of the set).  My offer was refused and I remember I was so upset because I had such a vision of what could be done with it.

Fast forward 4 months, and I found the same dresser, for sale all by itself!  Thank you furniture gods!

I confess I was going to use emerald.  In fact I had behr 'precious emerald' colour matched in my dulux as I was inspired by this piece by Pam at 'Simple Details' .  My emerald turned out much more 'forest green' than this one though, and I was a little reluctant to try it out.  So instead I played it safe and opted for my fav shade of turquoise (again!).

I painted the insides of the recessed detailing two shades lighter than the  turquoise body, and again accented with some blue and yellow.  Everything got a good distressing to 'vintage' it up a bit. As usual, the detailing is hard to see in the pictures. Sigh.

I just can't get enough of the hardware.  They are little works of art all by themselves!  They are like butterflies, all set to flutter away.

linking up to:

missmustard see.com

http://www.savvysouthernstyle.net/

Yellow and Gray Curio Vintage Cabinet

I painted this for a lovely girl who wanted to preserve the heritage of the piece, yet update it with some bright colour.  

This ornate little cupboard was a family heirloom passed down from her grandmother who received it as a wedding present many years ago.

She picked up the adorable knob at a market in NYC and thought it would look great, I think she is right.

It truly is adorable, and although it was cute before the transformation, I think it will be a show stopper now. 

I hope she likes the finished piece as much as I do.