Saturday, August 23, 2014

The 1970's were good for something!!

Having grown up in the '70's, I can tell you decor and clothing were, well, icky. 
But isn't it funny how things come around again??? Mid century modern furniture is hot, hot, hot right now.  And I've found that these chunky '70's dressers look phenomenal painted in glossy bright colors. The choices are endless. I had a listing for this one, ready for custom paint. A lady contacted me and said she wanted it done in navy for her nursery (boy). 

the pic is upside down cuz I had it stored on top of another. Yes I am hoarding if you must know. 


This one was in pretty rough shape. The wood was really rough and splintering. I spend many hours just prepping this one for paint. Tons of sanding and patching drawers. What I dislike about this era is they went to the stapling of drawers, cheap glides/tracks and MDF and or plastic moulding. Ick. 


A Few of the drawers were coming apart and they were so rough, you wouldn't dream of putting anything delicate inside for fear of snagging.  So sanding, wood filler, wood glue, shellac and primer to the rescue!  My client wanted a dark teal for the accent color on the sides. 

The drawers took me longer to do than the entire thing. After sanding the sides, I put on a coat of shellac and then 2 coats of paint. Then a poly coat went over that! This teal color was "flat" and I didn't want to leave it since the gray was a semi-gloss.  All the hardware was cleaned and scrubbed and given a few coats of Pure Gold and then a clear coat enamel. 

After sanding the body smooth, I applied a shellac coat, then Kilz white primer (just to hide any spots) and then I went over that with gray primer. I could have skipped the white primer I suppose.  The gray primer was so close in color to the paint, it made it difficult to see missed spots! 
Originally I had planned on using my HVLP spray because of the intricate drawers.
However, this prepping took so many hours that I ended up giving a first coat by hand.
Sometimes a sprayer doesn't get all the nooks. 
 So all the drawers and body got a first (sometimes 2nd) coat of paint. Then it got fine sanded. You could really see the "faux wood grain" on the drawer fronts. I did spray, but got that orange peel finish. I ended up sanding the top down and brushing on the last coat. I have a very good brush and used BM Advance paint with floetrol, so I hardly got any brush marks.  BTW, the color she picked was BM "Hale Navy".  The teal is MS "Plumage".  The Pure Gold is by Rustoleum.

She promised to send me a pic of the dresser in its new surroundings! Can't wait to see how it looks.


3 comments:

  1. Love, love, love! Thank you for sharing. You are one of the features at The Round-Up from the Before & After Wed party at The Dedicated House. Here is the link to this week's Round-Up. http://www.thededicatedhouse.com/2014/09/the-round-up-from-before-and-after.html Hope to see you again at the bash! Toodles, Kathryn @TheDedicatedHouse

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  2. The combination of navy and gold is stunning!

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  3. This is beautiful are you selling this? If so what is the price?

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