Vintage Dresser~A Paint Love affair makeover

Vintage Dresser Makevover

~French Cottage Style~

I have been dying to show you this dresser makeover! It has been one of my favorite things that I have done in a while. Of course, I think I say that everytime I paint a piece of furniture, so it may not be such a grand statement after all.

I love painting furnture, but give me a room to re-style along with it and I will get behind it whole heartedly. I have learned some new things with this remodel and I am thrilled to share not only the transformation pictures but those tutorials with you too!

The first thing I want to show you is the dresser before we refurbished it this last week. Some of you may remember what it looked like before but I always like to show a picture again so that you can see the transformation easily.

The first thing we did was clean it with TSP, deodorize it and wipe it all down. I clean the exterior with TSP solution to dull the surface and get the grime off for the paint to adhere well. The next thing I did, was sand off the stain down to the bare wood on the top to do a newly learned gray wash stain. I am so happy with the finished top and I will be showing you a tutorial on it soon. It is my new favorite way to stain a top now!

Next, I painted with a Shermin Williams paint (the sample size) called Summer White and then made it into chalk paint using my recipe, which you can find here. After painting 3 coats, I used a 150 grit sand paper and distressed the edges by rubbing lightly to take the paint off in areas that would naturally have some wear.

The next step in chalk painting is waxing your furniture. I used Annie Sloan's dark and clear wax combination (mixing the 2 tblsp of each to get a lighter color wax). I wiped the wax over the entire surface to give it a creamy aged look. Once this wax was dry, I took a small pin point artist brush and used the dark wax in the crevices to give it some definition and dark color in those areas. This dark wax technique ages the piece even more. When the wax drys (about 1/2 an hour), I used a clean soft cloth to buff the dresser. I added the "faux patina hardware" to the piece and we moved it inside. (You can find the tutorial on how to give any hardware the "Patina-Aged Look" here.

Here is what the dresser looks like all done! What do you think? I think painting it made a big difference! It has a soft french cottage look now. You can also see all of the detail and character in the piece, which was previously lost with the original speckled stained finish. I'm not sure who thought of doing this speckled thing with furniture finishes but it is absolutely atrocious; but let me tell you how I really feel!

Now the funny part of this story is that although having the magnificient "french cottage" dresser at 79" is really awesome; I unfortunately never thought about getting that thing through this archway to my bedroom.

Yep....pure genius, I say! Once we moved the finished piece inside I had that horrible realization hit me like a ton of bricks. But with my ever so positive "We can do it against all odds" sort of attitude I thought.....Oh, well it will fit, we just need to maneuver it a little. Go ahead, you can laugh! Obviously, that thing was not going to fit. My husband, who I honestly adore, looked at me (as he has done many o'times) and said, "Honey, it's not going to work!" To which, I replied, "Oh yes it will... give me a minute"! I determinedly picked up my very heavy end, raised to it's height and managed to fit it upright through the archway! Oh yeah, baby! We sat it down long ways in the hallway for an easy carry into the bedroom. Once it was in place, I turn to my very amused husband and say, "How hot am I right now that I just lifted that big thing up by myself and moved it around the archway?" He thinks I'm awesome! (wink, wink) We had ourselves a good laugh to what could have been a pretty stressful situation since that piece was the perfect piece to go in the bedroom and the 15 hours I spent working on it!

You know how sometimes you will see people take out windows to get furntiture in the space that won't fit through the door on the HGTV shows? I comfort myself knowing I'm not the only one and my mind did go to thinking about which window I could take out in the bedroom! :) All silliness aside, I have had a blast restyling this room and all the furniture. I am now working on painting the other dresser and hutch in the same techniques to match. Here is the before pic on the next project:

I will also be adding something really cool to the 79" dresser this week. I'm not going to give you any hints....just make you wonder, but I assure you that it's going to be AWESOME!

During the photo shoot for the dresser...this little guy decided he needed to be featured and would not get out of my picture.

(It was a long photo shoot)

I had to share this pic with you, as he was so nicely posing for me! His name is Chewbacca, Chewy for short, and he is our 5 year old Australian Labradoodle. He is a sweetheart and likes to follow me around the house and of course, participate in my photo shoots! Very helpful! :)

I have changed bedding and here is a sneak peak. I will show you some before pics of the bedding when I get the headboard done that hubby and I are building this weekend.

The blue and cream floral is by Ralph Lauren and I picked it up at Home Goods. The dark linen is from Bed Bath and Beyond! And the pillows were handmade by my mom in law! I am so happy with how warm and cozy this room feels now. I still have lots more to do but I am in my element and I think you will like the transformation as we share it with you! I've especially enjoyed decorating and picking up a few things for decor to match this new color scheme.

The round metal tray and clock are from Home Goods. The candles are just plain white pillars from Target that I wrapped coordinating scrapbook paper around to match the room decor. It is a simple and inexpensive DIY project that can add character to your home.