Re-do the Re-do

Not every piece is going to be easy to transform.  Some days you are more inspired than others.  Some times the inspiration turns into a fabulous new creation, sometimes not.  I have those moments and most of you have had them too.  Here's my story of one of "those" days.

I have a nice Ethan Allen long, low dresser with a worn finish outside, but super clean and in good condition otherwise.  Simple right?  I thought so, and no I did not take a before photo because I just never seem to remember them these days.  My apologies. :-)

I chose a deep dark brown base of American Paint Company's Wild Horses.  Love that color for a base.  On top I painted a couple of coats of Smoke Signal on the body and Limoge on the drawers.  New hardware and voila`, finished right?

Not bad, but kind of blah, drab, and boring huh?  It just didn't inspire me.

I had tried a new (to me) technique to get a linen look to the drawer fronts.  It felt and looked cool in person, but the effect is totally lost when you look at it like this.  Then I messaged a fellow APC retailer, Shelly Andrade of Shizzle Design and whined about my blah piece.  Shelly was kind enough to quickly throw up some photos of dressers she had painted with plain flat front drawers.  They were fabulous, and inspiring!  If you have never followed Shelly you MUST check out her blog.  She and her sister Cathy do the most amazing things with their projects...Shizzle!

So back to work and here is what I came up with using Shelly's projects as my muse.

Now, there will be some of you, hello Mom, who probably won't like this any better than the first result.  Or maybe will like the first result even better.  But for me, it is heaven to see so much depth on those drawers now.  I have not mastered that technique by any means, but it was so fun to try it out.

Now you can see the linen patterns I had created on the base coats.  In addition to the Wild Horses, Smoke Signal, and Limoges I now have Freedom Road, Desert Cactus and more Limoges on the drawers.  I hit and missed painted I dry brushed, and sanded, I washed and I wet distressed.  I probably could have played for another week on these.

So which version do you prefer?  I wish I had some nicely styled photos for you, but the workshop is too full to set it up, the weather is too cruddy to take it outside, and my house is in full winter dark (with Christmas Decor still up, the shame of it all) to take a proper photo.  I will sit on this for a while and then decide if I want to change the body color a bit or maybe just layer on a different coat of paint.  You might get to see the Re-do of the Re-do of the Re-do.  It happens.

Have a super fab weekend!!
Deb