a dark and stormy night.

Published on by Quandie

grey dresser staging 2

A while back I sent Mr. Q to a garage sale to see if there were any pieces of furniture to be had. Sure enough, there were several pieces that he thought I would like.  At the time, a storm was brewing and the rain was just starting to come down as he negotiated the deal.  As a result, he didn’t spend as much time scrutinizing these pieces as he should have.  He paid for them, threw them in the truck and hightailed it home.

grey dresser before

By the time he pulled in our driveway it was coming down pretty good.  We unloaded things and dried them off, and then left them in the carriage house.  Later in the week when I pulled this dresser out for a closer look, I discovered that all of the drawers were firmly stuck closed!  Ugh!  It was a case of the dresser looking pretty good on the outside, but really in very bad shape on the inside.

Handyman Ken and I literally had to remove the back of the dresser and pound each drawer out from behind with a hammer.  Then Ken went to work sanding all the drawers down and making a couple of other fixes that were needed inside to make the drawers open and close smoothly.  Once again, thank goodness for Ken.

After all of that hard work, I decided this piece should be painted in a dark and stormy grey to match both the weather when we bought it and my mood when I discovered the drawers were all stuck!

grey dresser title

I used a mix of Urban Rooster’s Smokey Ash and Dixie Belle’s Hurricane Grey.  Honestly, there was very little (if any) difference between these two colors.  I didn’t think I had enough of either one to do the whole dresser though, so I simply mixed them together.

grey dresser close up

I gave the rich grey color even a little more depth by finishing with Miss Mustard Seed’s antiquing wax.  This dresser has some very charming trim on the front.

grey dresser detail

I wasn’t sure about the hardware, but my friend Meggan convinced me to keep it.  She loved the verdigris patina, and she was certain the color would work well with the grey.

grey dresser hardware

I think she was right, what do you think?

grey dresser angle

I love the combo of grey and mustard yellow, so I used one of my fall painted pots for staging (you’ll read more about those in an upcoming post).

grey dresser staging

I think this one turned out quite nice in the end, but there was a lot of extra effort involved.  In the future I think I’ll try and stick with dressers that don’t have sticky drawers!

Linking up with:  Making Broken Beautiful Furniture Party at The Curator’s Collection.

27 thoughts on “a dark and stormy night.”

  1. I suppose it goes without saying that this piece has the lines I love. And gray is also one my personal may favorites and I guess I would have to say I don’t know how this could be any prettier. Such a beauty – So are you keeping or selling this love? Ken is godsend isn’t he?

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  2. Once again, a beautiful job. I love the color, the detail on the piece and the hardware looks great. I love the curve of the legs too. I’m always amazed by the power of paint.

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  7. This dresser has great presence…might be the awesome color. Glad you kept the beautiful pulls with the great patina, which would be a good trick to replicate. I found an outlet for the Dixie Belle paint but wherever did you find or order the Urban Rooster paint? Had to have a tiny chuckle about Mr. Q choosing a dresser without pulling out a drawer first, though😊.

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    1. Mr. Q is a very social sort of person. He totally knew the life story of the guy selling the furniture. I am quite sure that he was having a great time getting to know him, and meanwhile it never even occurred to him to test a drawer! I’m trying to train him on the fine art of choosing which pieces to buy, but if he is distracted by someone friendly then all bets are off 😉 You can get the Dixie Belle paint at Eye Candy ReFind by the way, and I believe it is much more affordable than Annie Sloan chalk paint. The Urban Rooster isn’t available around here. I did a paint trade with a fellow blogger for it.

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      1. Yes, a fascinating gentleman. He came over from Norway when he was about 20 and spent his life as a painter after some misadventures (he spoke almost no english), he finally found a fellow Norwegian painter who hooked him up with a painting outfit, and then…Well, there’s lots more, but it’s all beside the point. I thought the dresser had great lines and I tried the drawers and they were all stuck, but I figured (wrongly) that it would be a very easy Kenable fix, and then Q would have a great dresser.

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  8. Well, you already know my thoughts…I love it! The paint turned out beautifully, per usual 🙂 You’ve got mad skills lady. And Mr. Q., keep up the good work, the more social you are, the better deals you get (drawer pulling or not). My boys make fun of me that I know the life stories of all the old guys within a 20 mile radius. There’s Cary and Gene and Bob and Dick and Tom, and and and…love the history!

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    1. Well, this one would certainly fit in the ‘making broken beautiful’ category! I’ll make a mental note to join your party! Well … maybe I better make an actual note … thanks for the invite!

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