The Agave Color Antique Dresser Make-over

Here is my newest re-do (I'm on a tear lately refinishing stuff!).

This was a nice little antique dresser I picked up from CL. I met a lady

who handles estate sales. She got this from the original owner, so it was in ok

 shape. The top was pretty messed up and it

had a lot of dings and scratches, but the drawers were in pretty

good condition for being 80 years old! 

two sided sticky tape was used to affix the mirror to the back:(
I'm still working on fixing and painting the mirror part.  

Mr. Agave!


So I wanted to do an aqua-y color, but I wanted a bit of green to show through.

I just love blues and greens. So I played around with the colors and used my

new shades from Martha. 

This photo was used with a flash. You can see how the color washes out. 

 I brushed on Behr's "lilypad" before going over it with my chalk paint made from

MS "lagoon". 

The top I refinished in Varathane "Gel Walnut". This stuff is the bomb people.

Forget the Minwax. This gel stain is fabuloso!!! So easy and nice and comes out

flawless. It dried so quickly because this wood was so dried out. I used one

coat of the gel, a seal-coat, and then finished it with dark paste wax. 

The whole dresser got a coat of dark wax to tone down the color

and give it an aged look.  

I really hate the waxing process. :)

It was a cloudy afternoon. Again, the flash just kills the colors. 

I wasn't sure which hardware to go with. I tried on many different knobs.

I didn't have anything in the blue/green family except some light blue milk glass. 

It looked a bit nursery-ish and too close to the color of the paint. 

I was going to line the drawers with this fabric.  Apparently I'll have to line it with the cat as well.

 So here is a shot with a portion of the mirror done.
I still have to do the arm thingy-s that allow it to move.

The mirror by itself is actually a beautiful piece. Since the piece that was affixed to the top with
sticky tape was literally falling apart, Hub made a new one to set on the top. There is another piece
that attaches to the mirror (I dont have that in the photo)I'm actually leaving that natural wood.

New Buffet Re-do

So, as if combing through my local Craigslist isn't enough, I also am sick determined 

 to look at other states!  My husband went to Prescott AZ to visit his parents last month so I figured, "Hey, let see what kind of stuff they have there!" He was kind enough to go to a few places and came home with this buffet and two small tables (that I haven't even had the time to get to).

Sorry for the out of focus pic. Don't know what happened.

             


                                             

And here she is all spruced up!

So this buffet wasn't in horrible shape. It just had that worn and tired

finish. Since I love to refinish wood, I couldn't wait

to start on this to see what was underneath this old finish. 

                          So here's what the top looked liked after a final sanding. Not bad.

And here is the top after I stained it with my custom color mix of walnut, red mahogany and ebony. 

I put on a seal coat and gave a light brush over with some steel wool and then finished

it up with a dark paste wax.  I was going to use a poly, but I would have had to roll it to avoid

brush marks. I just didn't want to mess up this finish and have to worry about re-sanding and 

applying three coats. The dark wax, in my opinion, finishes off better than the poly. It's silky smooth

and shows off the wood beautifully. 

                     

Some of the small trim was missing in spots, so I had to fabricate the pieces using wood filler.

 I made my own chalk paint using "Divine Pleasure" from Behr.

You can find the how to on my version of chalk paint here...

Spray painted the original hardware with ORB. 

I got this to sell, but it really fits nicely in my dining room area. 

I've been wanting a buffet.  Hmmm, can't decide

if I want to keep it or sell it. 

How much would you guys list this piece for????

Union Jack table

I have been wanting to try a Jack for some time now. Couldn't find the right piece.  Then I saw
this one, from Restoration House Interiors.  I thought it looked so cool! Not to be copy-cat or anything, but I just had to copy it!!! hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.....right????!

This was just a standard '70s oak table. Hub cut it down. I sanded, mixed my chalk paint in a graphite, gray with a bit of blue added, and some white. Marking off the big cross wasn't that hard. But the lines going across just had me boggled. I'm a bit OCD when it comes to having things line up properly. I wanted to make sure the spaces were even all the way around.  After I don't know how long of trying to get the small stripes to match up, I decided to use a template. I found a leftover piece of flooring that was exactly 4" wide. I laid it diagonal across the cross and that was it! Easy peasy.  It's a lot of taping, but no biggie. After the harlequin pattern, this thing was a breeze! It would look better on something rectangular, like a dresser, but whatever.   I haven't decided if I'm keeping it or selling it.

After cutting it down.  This wasn't an
antiques by the way.

                                       My cat Athena matches perfectly!

Crack-house Dresser Re-do!!

So a few weeks ago I saw this dresser listed on CL. Hubs went by and took a look at it for me. It was wayyyyyy beyond needing some TLC. The lady said she got it from some crack-house with the intention of refinishing it! Um, don't think so! Hubs paid 15 bucks for this beaut. 

                   I honestly almost said, "forget it" and trashed this hunk. 

                                   So glad I didn't! I'm in love with how these colors turned out!

When he got it home I thought, "Good Lord! What the heck can I do with this?" Most of the guides of the drawers were gone and the bottom drawer fell apart when I took it out. 

There was some sort of melted rubber stuck to the top.

Maybe used as a lion scratching post???? WTH??

I had to completely re-glue the entire bottom drawer.  And for whatever reason, the front legs were different. Someone had shaved one side, and left the other original. We had to do some surgery to make them match.

 So after a ton of sanding,
I uncovered a somewhat intact
wood top! Yay! It appeared to be a Honduran Mahogany wood, which has a nice reddish undertone to it.  I refinished the top with a gel stain and sealed it with a shellac base seal-coat.

 Here's the natural wood color. It wasn't in good enough shape to leave it, so I decided on very distressed look.  I've been wanting to try some different colors and I figured since I only spent 15 bucks, if it didn't work out, no biggy!  So I made my own chalk paint again and used Martha Stewart's "yam" mixed with some other orange and golden yellow. I just coated the whole thing with that color and then went over it in MS "Hosta" mixed with "plumage" and a little green.  I used a sanding block and went to town.

 Everything got finished with Minwax dark wax, which really deepened the colors and brought out the wood tones beautifully!

Her front feet match now! 

I lightly dry brushed the top with the paint (I had already refinished and applied a seal coat)

Urban Outfitter knobs

I couldn't reuse the original hardware because there wasn't enough.
So, I had to fill in the all of the inner holes and re-drill in order to accommodate
these pulls I got from Hobby Lobby. 

And to think I was actually considering just throwing this away!  Never think the impossible      can't be accomplished! 

I had fun doing this one!