So if you’ve been following along my little adventures in getting a moderately more sophisticated look in my dressing room, you’ll know that I was struggling with what to do with my chest of drawers.
A spilled bottle of clear nail polish meant I had to remove all the paint from the top of the unit and I considered removing all of the paint from the entire thing… but unfortunately, the top really wasn’t in great shape even after sanding it as best I could.
In my opinion, there are certain pieces of furniture that are much better left unpainted or restored to their gorgeous natural state. However, as lovely as this dresser is, this is not one of those pieces. There were far too many scratches, scrapes and holes in the top to fill to make it worthy of a completely strip, sand and seal job (I wasn’t going for a shabby chic look) and so I decided a fresh coat of paint would really be best for this particular piece. Sometimes you just gotta let it be what it is, ya know?
After much deliberation, I decided to go with a minty green paint colour. It’s actually the next lighter colour on the paint chip sample that I used above the picture rail in this room – Dulux Japanese Maze 4 (nice name, don’t you think?).
I primed the top, gave the whole thing a light sanding and then 2 coats of the Dulux paint. The paint is oil-based satin which will give it a much more resilient finish than the standard water-based paints I’d used previously but the whole process takes SO much longer with 16 hours between coats.
Here’s a crappy picture from my phone during the whole rather disruptive process. You’ll see I took the clothing rail out of the space to allow me to work (it’s in the cleared out guest bedroom while we get on with other things in here). Strangely, it’s actually the best representation of the colour in real life.
I think all in, I worked on it in fits and starts and so it ended up taking me a week because I really wanted the paint to fully cure between coats before I even attempted to use it. I then went over the edges (where the drawers slide in and out) with furniture wax to make sure the paint didn’t lift anywhere it would get heavy use (the last time I didn’t do this and the paint ended up scratched around the drawers, looking a bit worse for wear over time).
Anyway, here it is (I even styled it up a bit for you guys despite the room being in complete chaos right now but let’s squint and pretend that everything isn’t a wreck around it okay?):
I have to admit, I love it. I actually like it a lot more than the turquoise colour and it just works so beautifully with the wallpaper (ignore the paint spillage on the floor ahem).
As I said in my previous post, I want to really tone down all the turquoise in this room and give it a bit more of a sophisticated vibe and I think so far, with the chest of drawers and the new lighting, it’s coming along.
Next up?
Ikea Hacking my Billy Bookcases to make them look a bit more posh. Stay tuned…
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Love the new color. <br /><br />Very fresh
Looks lovely my friend. I love that color!
It's just lovely! Very elegant, and I'm certainly looking forward to your transformation of those Billy bookcases – I have to show them to my husband, they would look just perfect in my future craft room! <br />That mirror is btw gorgeous!
This looks great — good job on the color selection. I want to send you a photo I saw in an advertisement in House Beautiful that made me think of your vanity area; I'll forward it to your email address.
Methinks you have house project ADD. But don't we all! The room is coming along nicely. Love the new light fixture! The bookcases are going to be so fancy-schmancy with the trim added.
Great job. I think the colour is perfect. Painted furniture can be a great way to add a subtle or vibrant pop of colour to a space without going overboard and ruining the feel of the rooms design. This piece is a lovely feature with a delicate colour.
Yep it dose look well, I like it. Its subtle and sophisticated. I agree with you, it goes with the wallpaper beautifully, and for some reason I think it makes the mirror stand out more xx