This heirloom dresser belonged to Mr BC's Nana. It's a beautiful piece of furniture that we have enjoyed for a long time. It was bought as part of a set in 1942, that included all sorts of bedroom furniture and occasional tables. I'm not sure if it is fantastic quality, but we certainly love it.
The finish was starting to wear off, and we had been discussing refinishing it, perhaps in french polish. It lived happily in the lounge room, and was home to plants, lamps........
......and this demonic lamp. It's not really demonic, it is a beautiful and calming Himalayan Rock Salt Lamp. It's job is to be attractive and pull negative irons out of the air, reducing allergies and dust born germs. It also has the surprising habit of sucking in moisture out of the air, then sitting in a puddle of it's own salty sludge. Do you see that plate it is sitting on? That is not supposed to be salt encrusted. Such a shock, we had no idea this would happen! Before we realised, the salt had been absorbed into the wood of the dresser, warping the sides of our heirloom. What a bastard!
As annoying as it was, there really wasn't anything we could do, so we rethought the finish on the dresser and opted to paint. Besides ruining the look of the wood itself, it had caused the two panels at the side to separate - you can see the separation down the side of the dresser in the image above, even after 2 coats of under coat. (I'm sure in decades to come some grandchild will strip the paint off, it seems to be the furniture cycle, doesn't it? One generation paints, the next strips and restores. I hope they have some kind of miracle wood cure by then.)
It was a bit nerve wracking, but as the paint went on it started to look nicer and nicer. There are 3 coats of undercoat, with sanding between each coat, before we get to the actual paint.
The paint we decided on was Taubmans Endure in Star Spangled. Apparently this is the exact colour needed when creating your own Tardis, according to the Whovian lady at the paint counter. I asked her how she knew, and she assured me she had made several Tardis's (Tardii?) before.
The dresser needed at least 3 coats of paint to have a deep, smooth finish. I really wanted saturated colour, no brush marks, something very uniform.
The paint seems to have a bit of Tardis magic/science in that it enables the dresser to hold a lot of clothing. We took out another dresser and a chest of drawers with a combined total of 7 drawers, and everything fit perfectly into the Tardis dresser. Did your eagle eyes pick up on the demonic lamp, sitting on the dresser again? Well, I am ONTO it now, and won't be putting up with it's shenanigans anymore. I've got my eye on you, lamp! Apparently the trick is to keep it turned on all the time. (Plus keep an eye on it.)
Originally I had planned to free hand a large white octopus crawling across the front of the drawers. I had that idea on a whim and Mr BC really took to it, he still thinks it's a great idea. I haven't entirely discounted it, but for now I am really enjoying it the way it is, even without drawer handles. Also, so much time went into painting it I'm not in a hurry to repaint if we have an octopus fail. I might live with it for a few months and see how I feel, maybe keep an eye out for some vinyl art? I do love an octopus..
It really needs some handles but I haven't found any I love. I really love the ones below, but they are not quite big enough - the handles it came with are about 8 cm diameter, the ones below are about 5 cm so I think the scale will be all wrong if I go with them. Also Anthropologie? Far too expensive! I need 8!
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| Anthropologie |
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| These Please |
So, hit me up with your handle ideas, I need all the help I can get. Also, octopus yes or no?
(bet you say no :))
xx