Pretty, Pretty Pink

After I finished the Big Blue Dresser last week, I was in the mood to do something a bit girly for my next project.  I've had this little 8-drawer chest in my stash for a while, and it has been overlooked in favor of flashier pieces.  For some reason, I saw it in a different light that day ... in a way that would more than take care of my girly urges.

Are you ready?  Brace yourself ... this thing is really, REALLY girly.

To get this color pink, I mixed Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Olde White and Primer Red.  (I totally forgot to get ANY photos of this chest before I painted it.  Imagine orangy 1980s pine, and you've got the idea.)

To make this even girlier, I dug through my stencil collection to find just the right design for the drawers, and I taped and painted dry-brushed stripes on the side panels.

As with all of the furniture I redo, this is a really solid piece with quality construction.  (I'm not wasting my time repurposing junk.)

I stripped and sanded and stained and varnished the top of this dresser, using one coat of Rustoleum Golden Mahogany and one coat of Kona stains and two coats of Minwax oil-based polyurethane.  The body of the dresser is ever-so-slightly distressed and waxed with clear wax.  All of the drawers are lined with vintage Waverly wallpaper.

This chest originally had bat-wing brass pulls on it ... not too girly.  I replaced them with these nickel handles, which don't obscure the bows painted on each drawer.

This chest is now ready to make some little girl (or big girl) very happy. 

I think I can rearrange a few things to make room for this in my shop.  If not, Craig's List has been very good to me.

Big Blue Dresser, the Reveal

I'm finally finished with my most recent furniture refurbishing project, and it's time for a little bit of Before and After action.  This project has been firmly driven by Murphy's Law, with obstacle after obstacle being thrown in my path.  I won't dwell on this now, since it's finished and it looks so fabulous ... it's time to share.  Settle in, and I will show you the process.

The subject dresser was a very tired, very heavy, well-made nine-drawer dresser from Dixie Furniture Company, which is now part of Lexington.

This piece is the perfect blank canvas for a bit of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint magic!

It definitely has its challenges, though.

According to my research, Dixie was a mid-quality manufacturer before it was acquired by Lexington.  I'm not sure what they consider to be 'mid-quality' because this dresser is made completely from solid wood ... except for the back piece of each drawer, which I find puzzling.

Quality joinery throughout!  This piece is solid ... which is the most important consideration when evaluating a piece of furniture I plan to redo.  (I'm not spending my time putting a new finish on a piece of junk furniture.)

The top of this dresser is getting stained and varnished, so the first step was to take off the old finish.

My 'Go To' tool for work like this is my trusty heat gun.  I wouldn't recommend this for beginners who are working on a piece that isn't going to be painted, because it takes quite a bit of experience to get the touch to strip the varnish and not scorch the wood.  (I stripped all the woodwork in our house with a heat gun, so I am intimately familiar with the subtleties off this technique.)  It's a good thing, too, because the finish on this dresser is lacquer ... which is super flammable.  The slightest bit of overheating would ignite the lacquer on my scraper, putting off profuse white smoke.  This is DEFINITELY a job to be done outside!

Once the lacquer was gone, I used my trusty palm sander to smooth the surface and to get rid of the last remnants of the original finish.  This gives it a nice even surface for the new stain ... my new favorite color, 'Kona' by Rustoleum.

One coat of wood conditioner, one coat of stain, two coats of Minwax oil-based satin polyurethane, and the top is now finished.  For the smoothest finish possible, be sure to lightly sand between coats of stain and varnish.  (I use a superfine sanding sponge for this.)

The body color is Annie Sloan's 'Aubusson Blue'.

The actual painting is the quickest part of this job.  After the paint was dry, and I lightly sanded and carefully distressed the edges of the drawers and the body of the dresser, it was time for the magic of a hand-rubbed wax finish.

Left: sanded and distressed.  Right: finished drawer, with clear and dark wax.

When I distress, I use two grits of sandpaper to try to replicate a naturally time-worn finish.  Here are a couple of examples.

This is what the applique at the bottom of the dresser looked like after painting.

Here it is with a little bit of scuffing from a piece of 220 grit sandpaper.

The distressing is further refined with a quick buff with a superfine sanding sponge.

The waxing brings out the subtleties of the distressing.  Here is one of the dresser feet, sanded and ready for wax.

Clear wax shines the underneath finish that's peeking through, but it looks a bit flat.

Dark wax, and a lot of buffing, brings out the contours and the 'patina' of this piece.  

All the hardware needed was a quick spritz of Oil-Rubbed Bronze spray paint, and it was good to go.

I've kept you waiting long enough.  Are you ready for the big reveal?

My 'glamour shots' photos had to be staged in my basement workshop, because this piece is big and heavy and I don't have anywhere else to move it.  Even in this not-so-ideal spot, this beast is beautiful.

For a finishing touch, all of the drawers are lined with coordinating vintage Waverly wallpaper.

There you have it ... quite a transformation, if I do say so myself.

It went from this:

To this:

Now Big Blue is ready for its new home.  Even though this piece started life as a dresser, someone could easily use it as a buffet in their dining room or as a media stand for a big flat-screen TV.  I don't have room for it in my booth at the antique mall, so I listed this piece on Craig's List yesterday.  This is the first time I've put one of my refurbished pieces on CL, so we'll see how it goes.

(2/7/12:  Edited to add ... Big Blue just left here with a fabulous new owner.  I'm thrilled to see it go to such a great home!)

I'll be back tomorrow with some lessons on exactly how I waxed this piece.  Stay tuned.

Slipcovered Upholstered Bench

What can you do with an old, heavy oak coffee table?  Make it into slip-covered, upholstered bench, of course.

This bench really did begin life as a beat up oak coffee table.  It was sturdy, but dull and dated, and I knew that I could make it into something special.

I removed the top and put it aside to be used for another project later.  The frame got a couple of coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Chateau Grey, and some selective distressing and dark wax, to highlight the turned legs and curvy skirt boards. 

The new top is made from a piece of half-inch plywood attached to a 2 x 4 frame.

I painted the frame with ASCP Old Ochre, so the underside of the bench is nice and finished, too.

I totally forgot to take any photos when I was doing the upholstering of the top.  Use your imagination here ... There's a piece of 3-inch thick foam on top of the plywood, topped with polyester batting and covered in muslin, stapled securely. 

Here's Alice supervising as I screwed the frame to the top.

Now the bench is ready for its slipcover.

The slipcover has a little box-pleated skirt, which requires a LONG strip of fabric ... three times the measurement around the bench, to be exact ... the bench is 48 inches x 20 inches, and the skirt strip was over 30 feet long.  Thank goodness I have a rotary cutter, which makes pretty short work of cutting the strip.

The fabric I used is an 8-ounch dropcloth, prewashed and dried and ironed.  I zig-zagged the edges of all of the pieces, because the raw edges on dropcloth fray like crazy if you don't.

Are you ready to see what it looks like?

This doesn't look much like a coffee table anymore, does it?

Dorothy checked it out, and she says that it's really comfy.

And this is what it looks like sitting in my booth. 

(I probably should have straightened the slipcover before I took this photo.)

It feels great to get another project out the door.  I have two more things I'm working on in the basement workshop to show you later.  Stay tuned.

Another Finished Project Out the Door

I'm thrilled that my 'Yankee Doodle Dresser' has been met with such positive feedback.  It's hard to know what's going to happen with when I step that far out of my comfort zone.  Today, I'll share with you two more pieces that I recently finished.

These tables are solid wood (as are all of my pieces), but they were wearing a dated, pseudo-pecan finish when I found them.  Their details are fantastic ... they just needed a bit of paint and some wax to help them show their best features.

I can't believe that I completely forgot to take any photos before I started working on these.  You'll have to take my word for it ... they were nothing special. 

The only 'before' photo I could find was the close-up of this table leg, and I did this side-by-side to show the progress with each step of paint and waxing.  Look how the hand-rubbed wax finish makes the distressing almost glow!

The tables are from a good maker, and they're solid and well constructed, so they are worth the effort of a redo.

With my trusty can of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in 'Country Grey' (which is really almost the color of a manilla folder), a bit of distressing to bring out the details, some Johnson's clear and Annie Sloan dark wax, and the difference is striking!

Like the 'Yankee Doodle Dresser', the finish on these pieces is a bit of a stretch for me ... but think I could get used to producing this patina finish, and I am really coming to like it.  I know that this was definitely the way to go with these tables, to bring out all their moldings and carved details.

This table has one deep drawer, though it's made to look like two.

It feels great to say that these tables are FINISHED!!!  I took them to my booth at the Minuteman Mini Mall last Friday.  

If I'm not careful, I could almost make a habit of finishing things and actually clear some storage space around here ... ha ha, that's not going to happen any time soon ... but I'm working on it.