Category: furniture.

I was so surprised by the outpouring of comments on my post about the dollhouse from Friday!  My dad would be have absolutely loved hearing all of the compliments from everyone.  A huge thanks to all of you for taking the time to leave a comment, I appreciated every single one!

Now, on with today’s post.

A while back Mr. Q brought home two dressers from the daughter of one of my blog readers.  The first was the french provincial dresser that I painted a couple of weeks ago, and the second was this one.

It’s a bit more traditional than the pieces I normally choose to work with, but it’s a  solid, well-made dresser.  I love giving pieces like this a new lease on life with some paint.  This dresser is going to last another 75 years easily.  It’s not going to fall apart in 5 years like inexpensive (or sometimes not so inexpensive) new furniture made out of particle board (not that I’m naming names, such as IKEA, or anything).

Ken helped me out with reattaching a drawer glide that had come free, but otherwise it didn’t need much work.  Ironically the aspect of this job that took the longest was removing the old contact paper that was lining the drawers.

I wish I had gotten a photo to illustrate, but basically that stuff came out in a million little pieces that I painstakingly scraped off with a razor blade.  And it left behind a sticky gooey mess that required a couple of applications of Goo Gone to remove.  This is exactly why I rarely choose to line the drawers of dressers that I sell.  Because I know that inevitably down the road someone is going to have to get that stuff back out of there and it won’t be fun (and oftentimes that someone  is me!).  The only time I line drawers is when the drawer bottom is too stained to salvage.

Funny little story though, I slogged through the first 7 drawers one evening after work.  Stripping out that liner, cleaning with Goo Gone, removing the hardware, sanding the drawer front and cleaning it with TSP Substitute.  I really wanted to finish all nine drawers that evening so I could start painting right away the next evening.  But as the sun was setting, I looked at those last two drawers still in the dresser and thought “nope, I just can’t face them, I’ll have to do them tomorrow” and I went to bed.  The next evening I went to pull out the first of the remaining two drawers and guess what?  It wasn’t lined!  Neither was the last drawer.  Ha!  Had I only looked inside the previous night I would have realized that I could easily prep them before bed.  Too funny!

Anyway, the next step was painting and that part was a breeze.  I used Fusion paint in a rich, dark grey color called Ash.

I painted two coats of paint, and shortly after the 2nd coat was dry I sanded the edges lightly to distress.

Just the other day my friend Sue was commenting on the fact that a lot of the furniture painters out there don’t distress their pieces.  She and I are of the same mind when it comes to distressing.  We are not fans of non-distressed pieces.  The only time I don’t distress is when I’m working on a mid-century modern piece with really clean lines.  Otherwise, in my opinion distressing is what really brings out the character of a piece.  I know it’s a personal preference thing though, and it just happens to be my preference (and Sue’s!).

One tip, you absolutely don’t need to add a topcoat over Fusion paint, but when I distress the edges I’ll often put a little Homestead House or Miss Mustard Seed beeswax on a cloth and run that over those exposed edges.  It will help protect that little bit of bare wood, but more importantly it will take away the ‘freshly sanded’ look of the wood and make it look more as though it was worn over time.

I have to tell you, I did absolutely nothing to the drawer pulls.  I didn’t polish them or even really clean them. Yet this next photo really shows how different they look on the grey.  Isn’t that kinda crazy?

So normally this is the point where I say “this dresser is available for sale”, but no, this one isn’t!  My sister stopped by shortly after I finished it, decided she really needed to have it for her new house and asked if she could get a ‘family discount’.  Naturally I agreed.  I’m pretty thrilled because she’ll be replacing an IKEA dresser with it!  My plan is to slowly work on her over time until her whole house is de-IKEA-fied.  I’m working on convincing her to replace the console thingie that her T.V. sits on next, but shhhhh, she doesn’t realize it yet so don’t tell her.

I posted all about our plan to makeover our master bedroom on Friday.  As is the usual case, the project has grown beyond its original boundaries.  When the college kids were out giving me a quote on the bedroom floor, they suggested I do all of the upstairs floors at once.  It makes sense since they all flow together.  Then, one thing led to another and since doing the floors involves moving all the furniture around anyway, we decided to swap the guest room and Mr. Q’s study.

Mr. Q’s study was in the smaller of the two rooms and he felt pretty crowded in there.  Our guest room, on the other hand, is only used once or twice per year and the rest of the year just lies idle.

There was one small … or kinda big … obstacle to this plan.  My dollhouse.  Yep, I have a pretty amazing dollhouse.  My dad made it after he retired.  He was bored and he needed a project.  When my dad took on a project, he pulled out all of the stops.

The dollhouse is big.  And cumbersome.  And bulky.  And any other word you can think of to describe a rather large item that takes up a lot of space in a room but doesn’t really serve any purpose.  The dollhouse was doing just that in the guest room.  Swapping the rooms is going to require relocating the dollhouse, but you’ll hear more on that plan later.  Today’s post isn’t about the dollhouse (but don’t worry, that will be coming soon), or about swapping the two rooms around, it’s about the dresser that the dollhouse sat on.  This may be the nicest ‘before’ photo of a piece of furniture on my blog ever …

I have to say, this dresser was pretty much invisible underneath that dollhouse.  I’d forgotten both how big it is and how pretty it is.

I don’t even remember how long ago I painted this piece.  I know it was quite a few years ago.  It was certainly before I knew about milk paint or Fusion acrylic paint, and even before I knew about chalk paint.  It’s from way back in the dark ages when I was painting with regular old latex paint.  I painted quite a few pieces in this color from Behr called Beluga (as in the caviar which is black, not the whale itself which is white).

The dollhouse did do a little bit of damage to the top of the dresser …

It left a couple of big scratches.  But the rest of the dresser still looked great.  So I decided to just freshen up the top with a couple of coats of Fusion paint in Coal Black.

I scuff sanded the top with some fine grit sandpaper, wiped it clean with a damp cloth and then added two coats of Coal Black.  Easy peasy.

Although the blacks don’t match precisely, it’s not noticeable at all.

The details on this dresser are really pretty.

Unfortunately, with the room switch taking place, I no longer have a place for it.  So I staged it up with my faux dress form, Lula, to get some pictures to use in my Craigslist ad.

Lula is made from an old yellow Styrofoam manikin body that I painted with black chalkboard paint, a lamp table base (also painted black) and an old black porcelain door knob.

One of these days I might change it up and paint her white and add an Iron Orchid Designs transfer … hmmm … I’ll just add that to my to-do list.

In the meantime, I got the dollhouse dresser all cleaned up and posted on Craigslist and it sold right away.

The new owner is going to add a sink and use it as a bathroom vanity!  Probably a much better use of this dresser than hiding it under a giant dollhouse, don’t you agree?

I didn’t mention it earlier, but the washstand that I painted in Grain Sack a couple of weeks ago was part of an entire bedroom set.  There it is in the front.

I purchased this entire set for the bed.  I have plans for that bed.  You’ll just have to wait for that.  But in the meantime, I’ve given the dresser (just behind the washstand in that photo) a makeover.

Here’s a better look at just the dresser ‘before’.

Although it came with a mirror, the two will be parting ways.

I knew I wanted to use milk paint on this one, and I also wanted to use an Iron Orchid Designs transfer.  I’ve mentioned before that you have to be a little careful with this combo.  If your milk paint is too chippy, it’s hard to get the transfer to stick to the paint rather than the paint sticking to the transfer.  So I gave this one an extra good scuff sanding and then cleaned it with TSP substitute to help control the chipping.

I also decided to go with a wood top on this dresser, so I stripped the original finish off the top which was pretty scratched up.

Next I mixed a custom milk paint color, mainly to use up a few partial packets of paint I had on hand.  I started by mixing equal parts Miss Mustard Seed’s Eulalie’s Sky and Shutter Gray.  The resulting color was just a bit too blue for me, so I then added another equal part MMS Grain Sack to both lighten it up and add a little more grey.

I love this color!  I’m going to keep track of this color recipe for future use.

After the paint was good and dry, I added the Iron Orchids Design’s Seeds transfer.

I had to ‘cut and paste’ it a bit to fit the dimensions of this dresser, and also to avoid the rectangular drawer pulls.  Your hardware probably won’t be in place when you are adding a transfer, so don’t forget to take it into account.  In this case I had to move “Autumn Catalogue” up a bit to avoid the pulls.  The entire transfer didn’t fit on this dresser, but this is most of it.

I mentioned in my last post about the furniture transfer fail on the Bayberry dresser that Sally at IOD recommends distressing the transfer lightly with fine grit sandpaper to reduce the ‘halo’ effect.  I gave that a try with this transfer and it definitely minimizes it. That ‘halo’ is most apparent when looking at it from an angle, so here’s a good angle shot so you can see what I’m talking about …

It’s practically invisible looking at it straight on.

I decided to go a little old school on finishing the wood top.  After stripping and sanding, I stained it with Varythane Dark Walnut gel stain and then added a couple coats of Minwax Wipe on Poly in a satin finish.  By the way, I used Homestead House Beeswax finish over the milk paint and the furniture transfer.

I focused on the ‘seed catalogue’ garden theme of the transfer when choosing my props for these photos.

I really love how this piece turned out.

What do you think of it?

If you are local and interesting in purchasing this one, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale’ tab for more details.

While I was inspired by all of the shades of blue I saw in Norway on our recent trip, in Scotland it was all about the greens (and maybe the sheep!)

So when I saw this pretty green transferware platter at the Barn Chic Vintage sale, I snatched it up and decided that I needed to paint something green.

Mr. Q had recently brought home this tall serpentine dresser with lovely claw feet.  His step-dad’s ex-wife (is there a better title for that relationship?  step-ex maybe?), who is also a very supportive follower of my blog, snagged this for me from her neighbor who was having a garage sale (thanks again Sherry!)

It needed a little work.  Ken replaced a drawer bottom that was damaged beyond repair and I dealt with some veneer issues by patching with wood filler.

Next I pulled out my paints to see what my options were for green and I had quite a few.  I had some of Miss Mustard Seed’s Lucketts Green and Boxwood.  I also had several shades of green milk paint that Homestead House sent me, Upper Canada Green, Gatineau, Acadia Pear.  In the end I opted for Homestead House’s Bayberry.

I found it a bit challenging to get a photo that shows the true shade of this green.  It’s a deep green that leans more towards the blue side rather than yellow, and with a grey undertone.  I added a topcoat of hemp oil, which deepened the color quite a bit.

While working with the Bayberry, I discovered it makes the perfect ‘chalkboard green’.  That’s it on the gold framed chalkboard, without hemp oil and after being ‘seasoned’ with chalk.  From now on rather than mixing MMS Boxwood and Artissimo to make green chalkboard paint, I’ll just use Bayberry straight up.

I also tried a little experiment on this dresser.  I added part of an Iron Orchids Design furniture transfer.  I wasn’t sure how well it would show up on a dark color like this, and I knew I was taking a chance that it wouldn’t work at all and I’d have more work to do to correct it.

And as it turns out, transfers and dark colors don’t mix.  I expected that the transfer wouldn’t be as obvious over a dark color, but I didn’t expect that that filmy sort of white halo would be so much more noticeable.

Speaking of which, after getting a question from Nancy recently about the ‘cloudy halo’ that you can see with the IOD transfers, I reached out to Sally at Iron Orchid Designs.  She told me they are working on improving their product to minimize that halo, but in the meantime the transfers are best suited for light colors.  In addition, she said that a little light distressing with a fine grit sandpaper can help blend it more on light colors as well.

OK, so next came the ‘fix’.  I was hoping I could use a sharp razor blade to remove the transfer without damaging the paint too much.

Nope.  That didn’t work.  That transfer was stuck good.  Really, that’s good news since it means the IOD transfers are pretty durable and won’t just easily peel off your surface.

On to Plan B (or would it be C at this point?)  I knew this was going to be dicey at best, but it was worth a shot.  I sanded down the two drawers with the transfers, sanding off the transfer as well as most of the hemp oil.  Then I wiped them down with TSP substitute to further reduce the oil.  I had a little bit of my mixed paint left, so I stirred it well and added a fresh coat to the two drawers.

I’ve had issues in the past with getting different shades of green doing this.  I posted about that here.  Over time as green milk paint sits it tends to change color slightly.

So, I do know better.  But I thought I might as well try it since I had the paint.  Worst case scenario I have to re-do ALL of the drawers.

Yep, worst case scenario.  It’s not a really glaring difference, but enough of a difference that it bugged me.

So, back to sanding and cleaning each drawer with TSP substitute, mixing up a fresh batch of Bayberry paint and repainting each drawer.  I didn’t have to do the body of the dresser, just the drawer fronts.

In the long run it would have been smarter to try this experiment with Fusion acrylic paint or chalk paint.  That way I could have gotten away with just repainting the two drawers.  Hindsight is always 20/20.  I hope that by sharing my failures in this way, you guys can learn from them and not make the same mistakes.

To recap.  New lesson learned:  don’t use IOD transfers on dark colors.  Old lesson reinforced:  paint your milk paint pieces all at once, you can’t go back later and just paint one or two drawers.  Got that?

I promised ‘dibs’ on this dresser to the original owner.  But if she doesn’t want it back, it will be for sale.  Be sure to check my ‘available for local sale’ tab for more details.

Way back in April, I purchased this dresser via craigslist.

As you can see, it was in pretty rough shape with splotches of white paint here and there.  There was also a broken leg that you can’t quite see in the photo.  Depending on the brightness of your computer screen, it may almost look black in this photo, but it’s just a really dark stain.

I call pieces with doors that open to reveal inner drawers a ‘linen press’.  I can’t find an authoritative source online that confirms that, but if you google ‘linen press’ you’ll get lots of images of pieces like this.  So let’s go with it, OK?

I’m a big fan of the linen press.  This is the 4th one I’ve done (you can see the others here, here and here).  However, they do tend to be a bit more work because you have to paint the inside too.

In this case, I painted the inside in a custom mixed Navy Blue Fusion paint (equal parts Liberty Blue and Coal Black).  I love using Fusion paint on the interiors of pieces for a couple of reasons.  First, it doesn’t have to be top-coated (adding wax or another topcoat inside a cupboard can be a real pain) .  Second, it’s fully washable which can be handy with both drawers and shelves.

You’ll notice that I didn’t paint the outside sides of the inner drawers …

I purposely chose not to do so because these drawers fit pretty tightly.  Adding paint to them would have likely caused them to stick.  In addition, the paint would have gotten pretty scratched up over time.  I don’t care how durable your paint is, having it rub against another surface like this will scratch it.

I love these drawers for storing pretty vintage linens.

But I bet you are wondering what I did with the outside.  You’ve gotten a little glimpse of it so far just to tease you.

OK, OK.  I painted the outside with Homestead House milk paint in Bedford (paint provided compliments of Homestead House).  This color is a lovely pale greige; not quite grey, not quite beige, but a perfect blend of the two.

Then I added another gorgeous Iron Orchid Designs rub-on furniture transfer (you can find these from various sources online).

This is a good time to caution you about mixing chippy milk paint and a rub-on.  If your milk paint is fairly chippy, or in other words it’s not well-adhered to your surface, it may come off with the transfer backing sheet.  Basically, instead of the rub-on sticking to your dresser, the paint will stick to the rub-on … does my explanation of that make sense?

You can see where I had a little trouble with that on the bottom of the door on the left (in the above photo).  The key to using a rub-on with milk paint is to make sure you prep your piece really well (scuff sand and clean with TSP substitute) to limit how much the surface resists the paint.  Especially in the area where the rub-on will go.

Oh, by the way, I switched out the original pulls on the bottom two drawers because I was missing one of them.  I chose glass knobs because I wanted them to fade away and let the transfer be the star of the show.

One more comment about applying the rub-on.  For the bottom two drawers, I cut the transfer apart and did each drawer separately.  I did that because I needed to adjust the spacing vertically just a tad to fit the drawers.  For the top half of the dresser, I placed the full transfer over the shut doors and applied it that way.  I debated cutting the transfer in half down the middle, but I think that would have messed with the design.  I didn’t want a weird space down the middle.  It was a little putzy to do it this way, but I’m glad I did.

My advice to you if you are going to try this is to be patient, go slowly, and don’t remove your taped on transfer sheet until you are sure you have the entire design transferred.  I usually leave mine taped to the surface at the top of the sheet so that I can pull it up slowly, and potentially let it fall back in place if I find I missed something.

By the way, I used Miss Mustard Seed furniture wax as my top coat on this dresser.  I waxed right over the transfer using a light touch and it worked beautifully.

So there you have it, the Bedford Linen Press.

Massive improvement, right?

And of course, this piece is for sale locally (while it lasts).  Be sure to check my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details.

Sharing at Silver Pennies Sundays!

I was recently contacted via Facebook by the daughter of one of my regular blog readers (thanks again for that Wanda!) who had a couple of dressers she wanted to sell.  She was conveniently located in Stillwater and the price was right, so I sent Mr. Q to pick them up on his way home from work.

The first one is a pretty french provincial dresser.

I decided to ease back into furniture painting slowly after my trip, and for me that means using Fusion paint.  Compared to milk paint, or even chalk paint, Fusion is just so darn easy to use.  It requires minimal prep, two quick coats of paint, and bam!  You’re done.  No need for a top coat.

Fusion recently shared a really great chart for determining how much prep your furniture needs before painting (be sure to pin this for future reference) …

My piece had a fairly glossy varnish on it to begin with so I followed that darker green route.  I scuff sanded with 220 grit sandpaper and cleaned it well with TSP substitute.  Then I just got out my brush and started painting.

I went with a two tone look starting with Fusion’s Little Speckled Frog, which is a pale minty green, on the body of the dresser and finishing up with Fusion’s Limestone, a warm creamy white, on the drawer fronts.

 Fusion sent me a free sample of the Little Speckled Frog when they came out with their Tones for Tots line.  It would be the perfect pale green for a nursery, but I think it works equally well on a piece for a ‘grown up’ don’t you?  I wanted to go with a ‘pretty’ color on this piece and these two were the perfect combo!

Once the paint was dry, I hit the high spots with some sandpaper to distress the finish.  Always remember to do this shortly after Fusion paint dries, if you wait too long the paint will cure and be more difficult to sand off.

I used my Little Billy Goat goat stick in Gold Leaf to brighten up the existing hardware (you can read more about goat sticks and how to use them here).

I didn’t add a solid coat of the gold, but rather just highlighted a bit here and there.

See what I mean about pretty?  This is just such a pretty feminine piece with all of those curves.

This was a super easy makeover for a slightly dated piece of furniture.  Now that I’ve got my painting mojo back, maybe I’ll tackle another milk paint project next!

This dresser is for sale locally.  Please check out my ‘available for local sale’ tab for more info.

I’m arriving home from my trip to Norway and Scotland this evening, but it may take me a few days to recover from the jet lag and get back into the furniture painting groove.

But in the meantime, I’m sharing this pretty little dressing table that I painted just before I left.

Isn’t it sweet?

I debated keeping the painted flowers on the drawer, but in the end I just didn’t want to work with that color scheme of greens and oranges.  Instead, the Homestead House milk paint color I chose for this piece is called Stone Fence.  It’s a lovely pale greige.  If you hold it up next to a warmer color it looks quite grey, but if you compare it to a cooler grey it looks quite beige.  It’s one of those great colors that blends well with anything.

I followed my normal procedure with this piece.  I sanded it lightly, cleaned it with TSP Substitute and then painted it with two coats of Stone Fence.  I followed up with two coats of Homestead House Limestone on the details (much like I did with the Gatineau table).  I did notice some areas starting to chip before I added the Limestone, but not anything excessive.  However as I added the Limestone once again I could see that more of that color was going to chip off.

I decided to keep an open mind and just keep going.   So I sanded to distress and knock off any flaking paint, then I went over the whole piece with my shop vac.  At that point I had quite a bit of chipped paint on the Limestone details, but still only mild chipping of the Stone Fence.

That’s where I probably made a wrong turn.  I decided to add a coat of General Finishes Flat out Flat.  I thought it would seal the piece to prevent further chipping.  I’ve used it over milk paint before and had good results.

But this time I couldn’t have been more wrong.  As the Flat Out Flat dried, it lifted even more paint including the Stone Fence!  In addition, for some reason the top of the dressing table got very streaky looking.  I don’t have an explanation for this, but am just sharing my experience.  I’d say use caution if you ever decide to add Flat Out Flat over milk paint.

So hold on to your hat Betty, this one got really super chippy!

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Betty is one of my readers who isn’t terribly fond of my chippy pieces.  I once accused her of being my mother using an alias because my mom also can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would want a chippy piece of furniture.  I am very slowly trying to win Betty over to my side, but I’m betting she’s not going to like this one!

As you can see in this next photo, the sides and legs of the dressing table didn’t chip nearly as much as the front.

I know that there are fans of the chippy look out there that will love it, even though this look isn’t for everyone.

Although technically this piece is a dressing table, or perhaps could be considered a small desk, it’s really quite petite.  I think it would make a perfect bedside table instead.  It would have plenty of room for your alarm clock, some bedtime reading material and possible a reading lamp.

So what do you think?  Is super chippy for you?