Another Empire Strikes Back...the Saga of the Empire Style Lowboy dresser makeover.

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Welcome back my Beauties!
How the heck have you all been?
I have been working like crazy on smalls for the booth trying to keep up with the holidays.
Luckily when the weather was nicer I was able to work on a bunch of furniture projects to show you.
This makeover started in a galaxy far far away....
just kidding..it started in my garage. :)
If you follow me on instagram (which you can do --->HERE)
you would have seen in my stories the SAGA of me scoring this beauty at a thrift store and having to get it into my husbands hatchback :)
I always know if I bring the little car, I will find a big piece of furniture. 
It had seen better days but it was structurally perfect and such a cool piece.
Once I got it home I got to work.

The top had seen the worst of the wear. But since I knew I was going to paint it, I knew I just needed to scuff it up and clean it to prep it. I used my Ryobi cordless sander to rough up the parts I was going to paint.
Then I wiped it all down and got to work.

Since once drawer had already been refinished and was in great shape I decided to keep that one as it was and just accent the rest of the piece using General Finishes Milk Paint in Queenstown Gray.
I found some old hardware in my stash and just gave it a couple coats of gold spray paint and they were good to go.

Then it was time to put it all back together.
I think you will agree the deep gray and the gold played so nicely with the wood tones in the large bottom drawer.

This Empire dresser definitely struck back with its curved legs and sleek appearance.

I am really happy I was able to get this piece home and give it a new lease on life.

I hope you enjoyed this makeover.

The snow is already starting here but hopefully I will get a few more pieces done before it gets really bad.

Until next time,

have a BEAUTIFUL day! 

Custom Blue Empire Buffet Makeover

Welcome back my Beauties!

Do I have a doozie for you today!

I have been bustin my bootie with my daughters graduation and everything that goes with it and have not had a ton of time to work on projects.

But I decided to join a little blog hop with some friends of mine 

over at Creative Vintage Darlings and that motivated me to get my rear in gear. (If you are a lover of all things vintage, come join us on our facebook page)

It just so happened that I picked up the gorgeous yet very damaged empire style buffet at a thrift shop and it inspired me to drop everything I was doing and makeover this piece.

I know from the first picture it looks like its in pretty good shape, but if you look closer you can see the major amount of damage to the veneer on the drawers.

I swear they used cement on this top drawer and no amount of sanding could budge that ridge they had built up.

I thought I would only be able to save the top since it was the only thing with no damage.

Also, as luck would have it, it wasn't attached to the top which made it a little easier to refinish.

The finish was pretty gone so I just used my Sander to take of the old finish pretty easily.

After going through my different grit sandpapers to smooth it out,

I wiped the whole thing with a tack cloth

to pick up any debris left from sanding.

Minwax wipe on poly

Since the grain was so beautiful I didn't even want to bother with staining it, and chose to just simply use a couple coats of Wipe on Poly to protect it! 

After seeing the top of this piece saved I decided to take the one and only drawer without heavy damage and carefully do the same thing I did to the top. 

I was THRILLED with how gorgeous the grain was on these two pieces.

As for the rest of the piece I decided on a custom combo of

General finishes Milk Paint

I used a 4-1 combo of

Coastal Blue and Persian Blue

I reattached the top and all the hardware and put this baby back together again.

Just look at how that grain POPS agains the blue paint.

Speaking of grain...any expert know the type.

I was convinced it was walnut but the top has me stumped.

I would almost swear it was rosewood from

the looks of the refinished top.
I have never seen the grain on walnut like this, but I can't tell if its just the mirror image that they used on the two halves or what?

If you know, let me know so I can finally know; ya know! :)

I am in love and can tell this is gonna be a hard piece to let go of.

My back is killing me from all the sanding and moving it around but I truly believe it was worth it to transform it from something that someone donated all broken apart,

To something that looks like this now!

It was just the motivation I needed to get moving on some pieces.

I hope you enjoyed this latest makeover and hope you will hop on over to see what other vintage goodies all my other friends have to show off!

Now I would love it if you HOPPED on over to all my vintage friends pages and checked out what goodies they have!
I know you won't be disappointed !

Until next time have a Beautiful day! 

Lora B. Create and Ponder // ArtisBeauty.net // Sweet Pea

 

HomeToHeather.com // Vinyet Etc. // Audrey Would