Before and After: Herringbone Dresser

 

Hello, friends!  I hope you're having a good summer!  Ours has been, um, interesting.  It started off pretty good, no big plans, but a few weeks ago we were notified by our landlords that they don't want to continue renting out their house.  We were all set to stay put for another year, but suddenly all of our plans for a relaxing, lazy summer were scrapped and we had to start scurrying to find a new home to rent, plan and execute a yard sale and PACK!

 

So far things have worked out well, but right now I'm home by myself with the 4 kids while the Mr. is in Europe for 2 weeks on a business trip.  And we move two weeks from tomorrow!!  Gah!  LOTS to do, but for some reason I'm not worried.  I know it'll all be fine.  :) 

 

So before I disappear for another month or so to deal with this whole moving thing, I wanted to show you a project I did a few weeks ago that I was really happy with in the end.

 

My inspiration began with a little school chair that I've had sitting around for a while.  I collect these little chairs and my kids love to use them for watching TV and such. 

 

 

The color on the legs of this chair is such a nice grayish green and I thought it would look cute on a painted piece of furniture.  But I had to find a piece to paint!  Luck was with me on a yard sale trip when I came across this old oak dresser that needed some updating.

 

 

Instead of trying to color-match my chair's legs, I just picked the closest paint chip I could find to it and Valspar's Redstone Osgood Green was the winner.

 

 Another thing I've been wanting to try is to paint a herringbone pattern on the drawer fronts of a piece.  This was the ONE!  I carefully taped off my pattern and made sure that the drawers were lined up exactly so the pattern would be consistent when they were put back in the dresser.

After the paint was dry I distressed everything really well and decided to leave the knobs unpainted.

 The top got sanded down and restained with a darker color, and the body of the dresser got painted completely with the green.  The skinnier top drawer I left mostly white but used the green to bring out the carved stripes.

 

Someday I might give this piece some glaze, but for now I really REALLY like how it looks!  Isn't it snazzy?!  And I have to say, while I'm kind of over the whole chevron craze, the slight off-set design of a classic herringbone pattern still appeals to me!

 

I hope you'll keep tabs on my little blog, even though it'll probably be kind of quiet around here for a while.  Thanks for your patience and have a GREAT summer!!