Birds & Roses Buffet/Dresser

I'm really busy right now but wanted to stop and share pictures of the before and after of a buffet/dresser I just finished.  I'm really torn about selling this one I just love it!


Here's the before:

It is a solid, good quality piece of furniture but so not my style.  Here's the after:

The paint color just won't come through with this camera sorry but it is painted with ASCP "Versailles" and it is just divine! It's a soft lemony green and the birds are stencils I made from images I got at The Graphics Fairy. They are painted with burnt umber acrylic paint.


I'm updating this blog to give you the details on how I painted this piece.  

• First I stripped the top
• I then applied a wood conditioner & waited 30 minutes for it to dry
• Next I took a lace curtain I found at a thrift shop and by laying it on the top of the buffet decided what portion of the curtain I wanted to use. I cut that portion our and tapped it to the top of the buffet with painters tape barely catching the edges of the lace.

• Next I spray painted the top with a Rust-oleum satin paint in a burnt umber shade. I love this color and use it a lot.  Here is how it looked after I sprayed it.  You need to be sure you spray it in an even coat and your lace needs to be a sturdy weight a light weight lace won't work.

• After it had thoroughly dried I applied 2 coats of water-based satin poly to protect it but in doing so found that the Rust-oleum smeared a bit but not enough to hurt anything.  So you may want to chose another paint if you are going to poly afterwards.
• I then painted the entire buffet in "Versailles" as I mentioned above.
• I wanted to carry the bird theme onto the body of the piece so I went to "The Graphics Fairy" and chose a flying bird image and a canary standing on a limb.  After printing them on card stock I used an Exacto knife to cut them out making stencils.
• I applied the flying bird stencil to the door and the canary on one of the drawers.

• When the stencils were dry I applied a coat of ASCP clear soft wax allowing it to dry and then distressed in areas that would normally see wear then added another coat of wax.

Now here is another view of the finished piece. You can see the color better in this one.

My favorite part is the top.

Now I have to give credit to Rosemary @Villabarnes who shared the idea of spraying lace on her blog.  I had thought of using lace before but had tried doing it like a stencil with a brush & when it didn't work just gave up.  Thanks Rosemary. 


Okay get out your paint & give it a go. It's back to work for me.


I'm sharing this blog post at the following linky parties.  

9-11 Never Forget

I will never forget where I was and what I was doing on 9-11-2001.

I'll never forget the horror and fear I felt when I realized that wasn't debris falling from the towers but people jumping.

I'll never forget the fear I felt when the plane hit the Pentagon on the Army side where my nephew was stationed.  That fear lasted until he was finally able to call us late that night to say he was okay.  Luckily he had been sent on an errand to the other side of the Pentagon, but he says he will never forget helping the injured and dying men and women he had worked with everyday.

We should never forget that we are not inviolable, but we should never live in fear because doing so will give the enemy the victory they hoped to achieve.

We are Americans! 
Our flag still flies and in God we still trust and this is still the land of the free and the home of the brave! They can not take that away from us!

My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who lost family members or were in some way affected on that day.  
May God Bless and keep you.

Bulky But Feminine

Remember this chest of drawers in my blog "Chest Trouble"?

Well after that post I still felt it just needed something I wanted it to be more feminine. Yes, that big bulky chest feminine.  So I got a great idea and after digging around in my craft room found a great paper doily with some lovely floral lace cutouts around the edges.  I took that and cut out a portion of it to make a stencil.  I then applied the stencil with "Old White" ASCP onto the outside edge of the drawers on each side and this was the result.

Waves of lace!  With the lace pattern and the "Old White" painted drawer pulls I think I achieved a more delicate look for this very large and bulky piece of furniture.  Let me show you how I achieved this look using pictures I took while painting the matching dresser. 

•  First, I painted the piece with "Old White" chalk paint.  
• I then applied a gray wash with "Paris Gray" using 1 part paint and 5 parts water.
• After the paint had dried I applied my lace stencil taping it down to keep it from moving and using a medium stencil brush pounced the "Old White" paint into the lace pattern.
• I started with the top of the mirror and applied the stencil under the curve across the top of the mirror and then on each outside edge of every drawer.
• I painted all the drawer pulls and metal accents with "Old White" chalk paint, as they were not in great shape with some of the finish having worn off, applying two coats. I was surprised at how much I liked them painted white instead of black it softened the entire piece.

• After all the paint was dry I applied two coats of ASCP clear soft wax
• The top I stripped down to the wood and applied a Dark Walnut stain and two coats of a satin polyurethane.

Here are pictures of the finished dresser.

The dresser is so big I couldn't move it by myself and I had it in a smaller room when I took the pictures so I don't have a full picture of the dresser just parts of it, sorry. Also, my good camera is out of commission so please overlook the bad shots.

LOL yes those are my arms in the right corner.  We live in a 1950's home on a small lake. The home wasn't what I would have chosen but the location was excellent.  Notice the low acoustical ceilings.  Sigh, we work with what we are given.
 :-)   

I also dry brushed some Old White onto the decorative elements of the mirror to bring them out more.

I hope you like how these two pieces turned out.  They were quite a challenge in that they were such large pieces for the shabby chic look I wanted to achieve.  Next a dining room set and a piece that could serve as a dresser or sideboard.


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