In my last post, (and on facebook) I asked whether you'd all prefer a massive post with my doodle's first big girl bedroom reveal, or if you wanted to see each project 1 piece at a time, and the overwhelming consensus was 1 project at a time. Personally I think that's a tease, but you asked, and now you shall receive. :)
Her birthday is mid-June and the plan was to do her bedroom for her birthday, but once I get thinking about this kind of project, I draw inward and become a project hermit and obsess until it's done. So even though I have at least 10 full DIY projects on my to-do list, not counting painting the walls, there's no way this room isn't getting done before June.
Her nursery in our last house was absolutely beautiful. It was sweet but sophisticated, and very clearly feminine without punching you in the face with bubblegum pink. Here are a couple shots: nursery:
But my doodle is straight up sunshine and rainbows. She oozes joy and love, so I thought her first big girl room would be bright and colorful and free-spirited like her. The art we used to have over our family room fireplace is what I was thinking would inspire her room... either this or a bold vera bradley pattern!
That said, her bedroom is very visible from the whole main living area of the house - foyer, living room, dining room... and we learned from our office that it doesn't feel right to have one room's design and color palette deviate so much from the surrounding area. With that in mind, I decided to attempt all the sass her room needs while still keeping with the french farmhouse feel and more tame colors. We'll see how it goes. I'm going to let her do whatever she wants in her bathroom since it's not visible from the rest of the house!
The first piece I want to share is her 'new' dresser. It's a craigslist find, and I loved the shape. French provincial dressers, both refinished and ready-to-be-refinished are a dime a dozen on craigslist, but I felt the size and scale of this one was perfect, and I love the curves and that it's not inundated with unnecessary carvings and mouldings. I opted against the mirror because the second piece of furniture will have a mirror. You'll just have to wait to hear more about that one. :)
The seller delivered this dresser for us, which was great because it's solid wood and super heavy. It's made by Bassett and the best guess is that it's from the 1960's. I've re-finished enough furniture by now to look at this, even in its sad condition, and know it would be a stunner after its makeover. My mom, on the other hand, just sighed and said "well you sure have vision!"
What do you think? Can you see the potential?
The paint on the top was so badly flaking off that I didn't even use anything to strip it. It was nice to clearly see it was solid wood when they delivered it though! I was able to just scrape the paint off. Oh, speaking of, before I started scraping, I bought a 3M lead paint test to make sure it wasn't lead paint which would have made it more complicated. Luckily it was lead-free! I had to use citri-strip to remove the paint from the curved edges of the top, because I decided to stain the top and paint the bottom like I've done for a couple other pieces in our house. I want this dresser to be appropriate for a little girl but I don't want it to scream "my only purpose in life is to be in a childhood bedroom!"
There were 1 or 2 drawers whose dovetails had separated, so I added some wood glue, tapped the connections back together, and clamped it and they're solid again. To finish prepping, I peeled off a couple of loose chips of veneer on the curved drawer fronts, sanded those rough edges, and gave it a good cleaning with TSP-substitute. I thought about doing full veneer repair on those chipped areas, but decided to just smooth it and let those spots contribute to the distressed finish I am going for. I also removed the wood appliques entirely because there were a couple chipped parts. I was planning to just replace them with new appliques, but I couldn't find any that I liked that were narrow enough to fit. The hardware is so bold and pretty that I'm glad I didn't replace them - this dresser just doesn't need them.
I was really upset about the first attempts at staining the top. Until now I've only stripped and re-stained fairly new wood furniture. This wood top is probably holding on to 50 years of exposure to who knows what, and it's super hard. So in spite of going way darker with the stain than I wanted the finished result to be, the wood just wouldn't take it, except for a couple spots that seemed to make it look dirty. So I was left with a mostly yellow top with a couple dark spots. :( I would have tried General Finishes wipe-on gel if they had a color in the right family but they don't. So I went to my old trusty fallback. I mixed up some dark, warm gray homemade chalk paint and watered it down to create a wash. I brushed that on and then wiped it down with a damp sponge. Then it was a little too chalky, but at least the color was getting closer to what I wanted because the wash just sits on top as opposed to soaking in. Next I went back in with the stain and just added little grain-like streaks on top of the chalky wash. This gave a more natural wood-like finish, except that the washed areas were very matte and the stain streaks were glossy. So I finished the top with 3 coats of satin finish water based poly. I had to walk away for the night and come back to appreciate that I got pretty darn close to what I was shooting for. I would have preferred a matte finish sealer, but the satin finish seems more robust than the matte, and I have a feeling this poor dresser is going to need all the protection it can get from its new owner. :)
The base and the drawers went really fast. I primed with white BIN because this piece is old and you never know what's going to bleed through old wood. Then I did a coat of black paint, and then I sealed the black paint with clear shellac before a couple coats of a soft white homemade chalky blend. I use the shellac over the base color so that when I sand to distress the top color, it doesn't sand straight down to the wood and lets that black peek through. So many times I've ever so lightly sanded and it takes both colors instead of just the top. It's obviously easier if you aren't aiming to get a particular color to peek through the distressed spots and don't mind sanding down to bare wood.
The hardware got a quick coat of flat black spray paint, and that's it. Now it's just waiting for the rest of the room to come together before we move it into its new home.
What do you think? I added some contact paper to the drawers too, though the color is a lot softer than it's photographing at night with a flash!
And are you satisfied with this one project at a time deal? Hope so, because there are no takes-ies back on your votes! :) I'll keep the posts coming as I finish each project! I'm thinking there'll be another furniture post next before I move on to something else but who knows?!
Her birthday is mid-June and the plan was to do her bedroom for her birthday, but once I get thinking about this kind of project, I draw inward and become a project hermit and obsess until it's done. So even though I have at least 10 full DIY projects on my to-do list, not counting painting the walls, there's no way this room isn't getting done before June.
Her nursery in our last house was absolutely beautiful. It was sweet but sophisticated, and very clearly feminine without punching you in the face with bubblegum pink. Here are a couple shots: nursery:
But my doodle is straight up sunshine and rainbows. She oozes joy and love, so I thought her first big girl room would be bright and colorful and free-spirited like her. The art we used to have over our family room fireplace is what I was thinking would inspire her room... either this or a bold vera bradley pattern!
That said, her bedroom is very visible from the whole main living area of the house - foyer, living room, dining room... and we learned from our office that it doesn't feel right to have one room's design and color palette deviate so much from the surrounding area. With that in mind, I decided to attempt all the sass her room needs while still keeping with the french farmhouse feel and more tame colors. We'll see how it goes. I'm going to let her do whatever she wants in her bathroom since it's not visible from the rest of the house!
The first piece I want to share is her 'new' dresser. It's a craigslist find, and I loved the shape. French provincial dressers, both refinished and ready-to-be-refinished are a dime a dozen on craigslist, but I felt the size and scale of this one was perfect, and I love the curves and that it's not inundated with unnecessary carvings and mouldings. I opted against the mirror because the second piece of furniture will have a mirror. You'll just have to wait to hear more about that one. :)
The seller delivered this dresser for us, which was great because it's solid wood and super heavy. It's made by Bassett and the best guess is that it's from the 1960's. I've re-finished enough furniture by now to look at this, even in its sad condition, and know it would be a stunner after its makeover. My mom, on the other hand, just sighed and said "well you sure have vision!"
What do you think? Can you see the potential?
The paint on the top was so badly flaking off that I didn't even use anything to strip it. It was nice to clearly see it was solid wood when they delivered it though! I was able to just scrape the paint off. Oh, speaking of, before I started scraping, I bought a 3M lead paint test to make sure it wasn't lead paint which would have made it more complicated. Luckily it was lead-free! I had to use citri-strip to remove the paint from the curved edges of the top, because I decided to stain the top and paint the bottom like I've done for a couple other pieces in our house. I want this dresser to be appropriate for a little girl but I don't want it to scream "my only purpose in life is to be in a childhood bedroom!"
There were 1 or 2 drawers whose dovetails had separated, so I added some wood glue, tapped the connections back together, and clamped it and they're solid again. To finish prepping, I peeled off a couple of loose chips of veneer on the curved drawer fronts, sanded those rough edges, and gave it a good cleaning with TSP-substitute. I thought about doing full veneer repair on those chipped areas, but decided to just smooth it and let those spots contribute to the distressed finish I am going for. I also removed the wood appliques entirely because there were a couple chipped parts. I was planning to just replace them with new appliques, but I couldn't find any that I liked that were narrow enough to fit. The hardware is so bold and pretty that I'm glad I didn't replace them - this dresser just doesn't need them.
I was really upset about the first attempts at staining the top. Until now I've only stripped and re-stained fairly new wood furniture. This wood top is probably holding on to 50 years of exposure to who knows what, and it's super hard. So in spite of going way darker with the stain than I wanted the finished result to be, the wood just wouldn't take it, except for a couple spots that seemed to make it look dirty. So I was left with a mostly yellow top with a couple dark spots. :( I would have tried General Finishes wipe-on gel if they had a color in the right family but they don't. So I went to my old trusty fallback. I mixed up some dark, warm gray homemade chalk paint and watered it down to create a wash. I brushed that on and then wiped it down with a damp sponge. Then it was a little too chalky, but at least the color was getting closer to what I wanted because the wash just sits on top as opposed to soaking in. Next I went back in with the stain and just added little grain-like streaks on top of the chalky wash. This gave a more natural wood-like finish, except that the washed areas were very matte and the stain streaks were glossy. So I finished the top with 3 coats of satin finish water based poly. I had to walk away for the night and come back to appreciate that I got pretty darn close to what I was shooting for. I would have preferred a matte finish sealer, but the satin finish seems more robust than the matte, and I have a feeling this poor dresser is going to need all the protection it can get from its new owner. :)
The base and the drawers went really fast. I primed with white BIN because this piece is old and you never know what's going to bleed through old wood. Then I did a coat of black paint, and then I sealed the black paint with clear shellac before a couple coats of a soft white homemade chalky blend. I use the shellac over the base color so that when I sand to distress the top color, it doesn't sand straight down to the wood and lets that black peek through. So many times I've ever so lightly sanded and it takes both colors instead of just the top. It's obviously easier if you aren't aiming to get a particular color to peek through the distressed spots and don't mind sanding down to bare wood.
The hardware got a quick coat of flat black spray paint, and that's it. Now it's just waiting for the rest of the room to come together before we move it into its new home.
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| It was pretty bright when I took these photos, so you need to look at the close-up to see the distressing. |
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| The stain doesn't look this brown in person either. It's more of a greige, but wood grain always photographs funny for me. |
What do you think? I added some contact paper to the drawers too, though the color is a lot softer than it's photographing at night with a flash!
And are you satisfied with this one project at a time deal? Hope so, because there are no takes-ies back on your votes! :) I'll keep the posts coming as I finish each project! I'm thinking there'll be another furniture post next before I move on to something else but who knows?!
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