This piece may not actually look that bad at first glance but it sure was in need of a face lift. It has really good "bones" as I like to call em'. I try really hard to only buy solid wood pieces. I always look at the drawers to see if they have "dovetail" construction.....a major plus when buying used pieces. This little beauty met all of my criteria and so in the suburban she went.....once i got it home, I noticed that the gold painted trim wasnt in fact gold "painted" trim. It was gold peel-in-stick trim....yuck!
See ya, I quickly peeled that off. One of the things that instantly drew me to this piece was its size. It wasnt one of those massive monstrous pieces that takes up an entire wall and it was also fairly narrow but yet functional.....another bonus when buying used pieces!!
So, with all the trim and hardware removed, it was time to paint this beauty. But what color? I have several cans of paint I've managed to collect over the last several months but I was bored of all those. But wait....I remembered that a few weeks ago ACE Hardware was advertising their FREE paint event. They give away one free quart of paint on a selected Saturday. Maybe, just maybe I will get lucky and it will be this Saturday....and guess what? Yep, it was THAT Saturday. So I jumped into the car and lucky for me there is an ACE not even 2 minutes from my house. I must have looked like a crazy lady running into the store...."Do you still have any of the FREE paint left?" I asked. "Ooh you just barely made it, we only have 6 cans left" OoMmGg!! The nice elderly man at the paint counter smiled as I'm sure he thought I was crazy and said, "Just pick out your color" Oh I was like a kid in a candy store. There were so many wonderful colors to choose from. I quickly spotted a wonderful color that was so unusual. Was it Blue, was it Gray....oooh be still my heart. It is called "King's Canyon" and it is wonderful! Ok, enough about the paint. I could go on and on and on about paint colors. I'm a total geek I know! Anyway, I got my free quart and came home and moved that baby into the paint station and here she is with her first coat of King's Canyon
Whenever I am painting something with my "sprayer" I try and do at least two pieces so that I don't waste the time and energy setting up the paint station for just one piece, so I was able to also paint a small end table I had picked up for $3.99 at the thrift store
After the second coat of paint had dried, It was time to "distress" them. This is where I take my sander and just lightly go over the edges and certain "key" places that a piece would normally show signs of "wear". I usually will distress around the handles or hardware and also around the bottom and drawers. Then I use a dark brown wax to "discolor" the piece. This paticular color changed so much when I applied the wax.
As I had posted in earlier in the week, I recently moved into a space at Merchant Square so I thought this piece would make a great statement in the space and also provide us lots of room to "stage" some of our other treasures. So, I loaded this baby into the car and on "move-in" day I unloaded it onto one of the carts Merchant Square provides its dealers and I stopped at the front counter to talk to the ladies (I'm a talker if you havent figured that out yet) and guess what??? Someone came by and bought that piece right off of the cart! I hadnt even had a chance to move it into the space or even mark it for that matter. WOW!! Welcome to the store huh??? So unfortunetly I dont have any really cute pictures of it all "staged" and cute in the space. But I did manage to grab a few pictures before the new owners wheeled it out to their car.
They told me it was exactly what they had been looking for and they were going to use it as a TV stand. Oh perfect! I knew when I saw this piece even with it's peel-in-stick gold trim it was special. So...lesson here?? Don't pass over something just because its ugly now, think about how pretty it could be! Thanks for stopping by.
Kris
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