I got very interested in refurbishing and refinishing furniture last year as I saw a creative way to “upcycle” what others might see as unsightly. I also had been following a lot of design blogs and last summer I picked up a very old school yet cool library card catalog. I started to refinish it (you may have seen bits and pieces of it in posts and a couple drawers hold cards in my booth) but right when I was in the middle of refinishing it, I was contacted by a company to license my artwork. That, as many of you know, was a roller coaster experience and I basically had to put my life on hold and focus solely on mass producing art.
Feelings about that whole experience aside, I had to stop working on furniture and I never finished that card catalog (though I am determined to do so this summer!). I stopped reading books on the topic, stopped following many of those blogs and put that hobby on the back burner. The other issue I had was I had no place to showcase any furniture I worked on and while many people sell furniture on Etsy, it’s a pain to ship and not feasible with me living such a distance from a major metropolitan area. But when I got the opportunity to rent my booth at The Barn, all those ideas and excitement about refinishing furniture came flooding back. Not only that, but I needed furniture to merchandise my goods on (I was using tables from my home and wanted them back!).
One of the things that has been very hot lately is French Provincial style furniture, especially those that have been painted and distressed to give the 60′s/70′s look a new/old look. So I had been scoping out craigslist and thrift stores for this kind of furniture and a couple weeks ago, I was thrilled to find a dresser and vanity/desk set at a great price!
Here’s how the dresser looked like before (minus drawer pulls)…
Halfway through the process with just gray and white paint, it looked quite pretty, like suitable-for-a-little-girls room-pretty. I could have left it just like that but I wanted a more adult look; a more vintage/grungy/distressed look; something that had an old world style. And distressing and adding wax gave it more of a bluish-gray look.
I painted it a mix of chalk paints and sanded the heck out of it to give it that grungy, worn look and distressed with dark and clear wax to give it an aged feel. Then sanded it again to give it that buttery smooth feel. Because I went through so many steps and was relatively inexperienced in the process and had to keep referring back to books and blogs, this whole piece (with chair, missing from photo above) took me about 12 hours to complete. Sheesh! But it was truly a fun experience and I’m so glad I did it. I almost wanted to keep this, but alas, I needed it in my booth to merchandise my goods and bring back some of my home furniture.
Available at The Barn
What’s left now? Her dresser sister! Keeping busy 
