Saturday, November 22, 2014

Mahogany Empire in Kelly Green Milk Paint

A friend of mine brought me this old, beat up small dresser to see if there was anything I could do with it.  He had visions of restoring, but I think it was just too much for him. This little dresser was literally falling apart.  Everywhere. Besides all the peeling veneer, the body needed to be secured, the drawers needed glue, Some parts had to be nailed, the casters needed serious cleaning and smoothing up to get them to roll properly, sigh. The list goes on and on. 
  Peeling veneer on the left drawer.  I just removed it all. The larger drawer got a lot of glue.

          Everything got sanded and re-stained because I wanted the darker wood to show
through. The left drawer is the wood that was underneath the veneer that I peeled off. The right was ok.I didn't bother to do a perfect full sanding and staining since only the edges were going to show.
I love doing milk paint on these older bare wood pieces.
There were only two original knobs so I had to go to my stash.
I'm still debating if I like these lighter green glass knobs. 
( Doesn't it look cool with my fern and my pink roses??!) 
 After the milk paint, I applied a generous amount of natural tung oil. It soaked it up like a sponge and still looked rather dull.  I applied another coating and then took the picture. If you see some dry spots on the pics, those are the places I missed. 
The insides of the drawers were horrid! I sanded all of them, inside and out. Sealed with shellac and then painted with GF milk paint in"Patina".  They look good as new. 
 On some areas I went over the bare wood with GF paint first. See how cool the wood looks when distressed?? Thats why I stained it again even though I was painting over it.  
I also did some gluing to the veneer on the top. You can't even tell can you???!






















I think this one would look so cool as a bathroom vanity in a period-style house. One with the black and white hex tiles? This piece is rather short, so a taller vessel sink could be added on top to finish it off. This is also a perfect height to attach a changing pad/area ensemble on top.


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