From Drab to Fab

Here's a dresser that I bought from the Salvation Army over 25 years ago.  It's sturdy, solid wood, mid-century construction has held up through at least 8 moves and multiple homes, and even though it was dinged up, and still had a few old burn marks on it, it has served me well!

My tween daughter has been hiding this dresser in her closet because "it doesn't go with" her room.  So I asked her what it would take to get it out of her closet:  "Paint it purple, please!" was her answer.

In order to create a deep color purple, I experimented with some Annie Sloan Chalk Paint®, and came up with the following recipe:  4 parts Napoleonic Blue + 2 parts Henrietta + 1 part Emporer's Silk.  The color met my daughter's approval.

First, I removed the handles on the drawers.  Next, I wiped the surfaces down with a TSP/water solution, then wiped it again with a wet sponge.  Then, I brushed on 1 coat of my custom Chalk Paint® mixture, and let it dry.  The one coat looked so good, I didn't bother with a second.

Next, I used a stencil (Lilly Scroll from Cutting Edge Stencils) and some metallic silver acrylic paint (Liquitex) to stencil the drawer fronts.  This is a little tricky because the stencil was larger than the drawer widths.  I aligned it visually, and masked (with tape) any parts of the design that would looks strange going off the edges.  I applied the metallic paint with a stencil brush, stippling with very little paint on the brush.  I'd wash and dry the stencil then repeat the process on the next drawer while the first was drying.  Because I like to multi-task, I did this during commercial breaks while watching tv.

The final step was to paint the drawer handles.  I wanted them to be metallic silver (for which there is no chalk paint), so I lightly sanded them, wiped them with a damp cloth, and sprayed them with Rustoleum primer.  After it was dry, I sprayed them with Rustoleum metallic silver (one light coat).

Here's where I learned an important tip:

Don't leave spray paint in a cold garage right before you're going to use it!!  We've been having a cold spell, and the silver spray paint was probably 40F before I picked it up and sprayed it on the first two handles.  Here's what happened:

Uh oh!  After they dried, I brought the spray paint in the house to warm up for a few hours.  Then I sanded these handles and tried again.  Second time worked like a charm!

After waxing and buffing the dresser and drawers (not the handles), here's the finished result: