Warning: Photo heavy post!
I bought this great old dresser and mirror this summer, and it was waiting in my studio garage until I sold some bigger pieces of furniture at my booth.
Last week the time had come for me to bring it in and paint. Unfortunately its getting a bit too cold and inclement for me to paint in my garage.
These are the before photos:
I love mirrors like this, they are pretty as is, but once you paint them, the details pop.
Although it was stained brown, it had a strong red undertone...
You can really see the red in these photos.
While I use ASCP and you don't really have to sand it, I still like to sand the dresser top a bit, just to give it some extra hold. I like to strip/stain the dresser tops, but I doubt I would have gotten much more money for the dresser, even if I stained the top. Given the amount of time invested in sanding/stripping/refinishing properly, I felt it wasn't really worth it.
I wanted to try my can of Versailles paint, and this was the piece!
One coat, two coats, four coats later...
and the red was still bleeding through! Too bad because I really liked the colour.
See all the pink? I even tried the wax then repaint technique...not so good. In the end...I went with Graphite!
This just goes to prove that old saying 'When at first you don't succeed' is just a waste of time!
I'm really a 'Cut your loses' kind of girl! I had to stop fighting the red. Well, at least the Versailles made a nice under colour for the Graphite, once distressed.
I'm from the school of light distressing. Chris, my neighbour and painting pal is from the school of heavy distressing, and while its not my style (maybe I'm a bit of a chicken?), her pieces are actually quite lovely. As you can tell, I painted this one. Chris is in FL for the winter (lucky B****!) so no heavily distressed pieces in my booth till May!
Here she is, all assembled in my booth. What a great piece! Most of the pieces I paint I wish I could keep, and this piece definitely one of those pieces! Good thing I live in a wee little house!
Excuse me while I go hunting for something to paint in Versailles :)
Sharing:
Sunday View
I bought a similar dresser from a dealer going out of business. It's painted a sort of yellow color and poorly distressed, so I'll have to repaint it eventually. I only paid $40 for it, so I don't mind having to repaint. I like the graphite color you chose for yours!
ReplyDeleteToo bad about the red bleeding through, but I'll bet it's perfect under the graphite! I haven't tried ASCP, but I am thinking about using it on my bottom set of kitchen cabinets. I love how your dresser turned out and hope it sells really quickly! Thanks for sharing with Inspired Sunday.
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