The tri-color dresser comes to life

Remember this Photoshop mock-up?

Here it is in real-life, painted and ready to go.

I truly think I would have been painting and repainting if I

hadn't made all my color mistakes on the computer.

Now here's my mock-up of its little buddy.

And below is the real thing.

Who can resist a matching nightstand?

•   •   •   •   •

After procrastinating for over a year, I finally have these two out of the garage and ready to go to my booth at Collector's Market. Oh how I love seeing some new empty space in the garage. Even though I tend to fill it really fast. Infact that reminds me - I haven't looked at Craigslist yet today.

So cute together.

You can really see the change in light here. I took these pictures over the course of two days and the sun finally hit during this shot.

Normally I tell what paint I used but this time it was such a hodge-podge of custom mixes, paint samples, black washes, black glaze, pewter glaze, spray paint and heavy sighs that it wears me out thinking where to start. So let's just say I used it all. Everything within grasp. And if it wasn't right, i mixed it together. Acrylic, chalk, faux chalk, latex, you name it, it all got mixed together.
I showed no respect.

I spray painted the pulls with a dark gray primer and covered that with a clear matte poly spray.

I let the brush strokes show so they could catch the glaze and washes to add some texture.

At one point I ran out of black paint so we drove down to a local hardware store where I knew they mixed paint. The color chips only went to a dark graphite which the sales associate assured us was really black. I was skeptical. He mixed it and added extra black but it just looked gray to me. I found a can of Rustoleam black decor paint and went back to see how the mixing was going. Sure looked gray to me. He assured me it would dry to black. Hrumph. It's been two weeks and it's still gray. It will always be gray. How can a paint company not have black?

Really, to top it off, it's a very unattractive gray. Thank goodness for my can of decor paint.

Here's the finished dresser.

And its trusty sidekick.

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A friend of mine, when she saw these pieces, said the style looks like a cross between Industrial and Vintage. Huh, I hadn't thought of that.

Mr. Bad gets home tomorrow so we'll load everything up and get it moved to my booth. Another day of moving furniture! Can't wait!

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Sharing with:
shabby nest
miss mustard seed
french country cottage

Using Photoshop to problem solve.

I thought I'd share my solution to confounding paint dilemas. Sometimes I look at a piece of furniture and think, "Well, there's about a 100 ways I can approach this. Where do I start?"

I've just started working on a dresser that has been in the garage for over a year. It has a matching nightstand and they both have a lot of Art Deco/mid-century detail.

{before}

But I procrastinated. I had this idea that I would strip areas and paint others to have a pretty white-and-stain look. But since I hate stripping furniture, I never got started. Until about a week ago. I stripped the areas I wanted stained and discovered to my horror that every kind of wood had been used to make this dresser and the fake pecan finish had hidden it completely. The nerve!

So I gave it a shot but each type of wood took the stain differently and with a gigantic sigh I was on to Plan B, what ever it was.

I have a system for figuring out color-ways on complex pieces of furniture, using PhotoShop. It keeps me from diving into something with wild abandon only to repaint when a clearer mind prevails. 

Here's how that works. Or doesn't work.

{Maybe, but this is a manly dresser.}

It's a chance to get the crazy ideas out of the way. It's also a chance to happen across something to save for a different, more appropriate, piece of furniture.

 {Too dark}

 {Hmmmm}

 Winner! This is what I decided to do.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

If I'm painting something for someone else it really helps to be able to email comps.

{before}

 {Mustard on your elk, anyone?}

{Dated before it began}

This is the final painted desk, ready to go.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

 {before}

 {The requisite bad idea}

 {Metallic. I'll save this idea for later}

 {I like!}

This is the final painted desk. It's pretty darn close to the mock-up.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

I don't have all the versions I did for Walter the Clock but believe me there were many!

 This was the final Photoshop mock-up I did, from here I winged it.

 Ahhhh Walter, I miss you, clock.

Stay tuned to see if that dresser ends up looking anything like the mock-up!

Sharing with
miss mustard seed
shabby nest
the dedicated house
mod vintage life
my uncommon slice of suburbia
home stories a to z
elizabeth and co