MakeMePrettyAgain: A New Chinoiserie Re-Do

Thursday, April 9, 2015

A New Chinoiserie Re-Do

I'm always on the lookout for unusual dressers to rehab. And I love the mid century stuff. So when I came across this one that my friend found, I pounced on it. I had already done this style in a little cabinet awhile back. HERE. I gave it a gray weathered top and coral body. But this one I envisioned in glossy white. I had hoped to keep the wood top, but after stripping and sanding a bit, it just wasn't all that great. The body and top had gouges and missing veneer patches.

And here's what I came up with!

Heres the little cabinet I did from the same line.

At first, I wanted to do the handles (the vertical gold parts are the drawer pull-outs) in black. The horizontal gold parts are what the drawers sit on. I wanted those gold.

So first I did Klein Blue, didn't like it.

Then I did it in black. Didn't like the contrast. Thought I did. But my friend Jennifer over at

MiVidaVintage "made" me change it! Lol. Thank-you Jennifer. Keep in mind that every time I had to paint these handles, I had to tape off around them to keep the white clean!!

I have to admit, the gold with the gold and white does look better.

This was all brushed by the way. Except the bottom fretwork. I sprayed that.

So just because I have to have something different, I give you peacocks!

More taping. All the white surrounding the inner portion of these drawers were all taped off and sprayed. I took a lot of time with the details on this piece. This is fabric that was applied using ModPodge. Also used it on top after watering it down. When dry, just sand the edges.

I left the doors in their mahogany state. Yes I did sand off the old finish. Jennifer wants me to paint the inside of the doors white as well. Any opinions??? Wood or Paint??