Mr Johnson's Dresser

Sometimes when you look at a piece of furniture you just have to have some vision. Sometimes it’s obvious that a piece has potential but quite often it’s not.

That was the case with the dresser that Mr. Johnson left in my workshop when Mrs. Johnson sold me their house. Mr. Johnson was a cabinet maker I’m told and half of my garage is a workshop where he did his woodworking. It’s a great space with a ton of potential but really raw at this time… definitely one of the things that sold me the house though.

My oh so raw workshop...someday this will
be a fabulous office (unfortunately today though
it's just storage)

Mrs. Johnson had left a couple of pieces of furniture Mr. Johnson had used for storage and workspaces. One was a really sad looking dresser…you know the type, the kind you pick up at the unfinished wood stores for cheap and stain yourself. This was definitely one of those and had clearly been well used. But I could tell it was still solid and unlike much of the “lower end” furniture sold today it was real wood (inexpensive wood, but real none-the-less). 

Would you see any potential in this mess???

And this is the mess that necessitated some real vision.

It had been sitting in my garage workshop for who knows how long collecting dirt when I was looking for something that would give me a little extra storage in my home office/project room. It’s really a guest bedroom but since I already have one of those I use it for more of a multi-purpose fun room. Unfortunately, the fun runneth over in my multi-purpose room so I needed to do something…fast…and more importantly cheap!

I immediately though of the sad dresser from my outside workshop…I clearly needed some vision…. 

Oh the dirt...and I'm really not sure why Mr J decided it
was a great idea to screw (yes it was screwed) this sad
bookcase to the sad dresser...

So on a very hot weekend I put the grubbiest of my work clothes on and pulled it out and took the hose to it, soaped it and scrubbed each and every last corner to within an inch of its life. 

Then spent a few evenings priming and painting…I decided I wanted to paint it the color of lemonade. A yellow dresser I saw and blogged about last summer (click here to see lemon dresser) from Nobleboro Antique Exchange had stuck in my head and I have driven myself crazy for the last year trying to figure out how I could incorporate something similar into my house. Problem now solved, this is the perfect time/place to do it! 

I don't always prime my projects but am so glad I did this
time - it made all the difference.

Since my sad dresser had been sitting in my garage for so long I thought it was probably a good idea to paint the inside of the drawers – just to seal the wood. I had purchased about 7 cans of grey high gloss spray paint for a project I was working on last year but had changed my mind and didn’t end up using it. With grey & yellow being everywhere in the fashion mags this spring I just knew it was the perfect color combo for my little dresser. 

Finished drawer.  The spray paint did the trick, clean, crisp
and no musty smell!

I also had some glass knobs that I had picked up on clearance a while ago for the built-in in my living room that didn’t quite work out on that piece so those would be perfect to give the dresser a little pizzazz. The end product came out amazing…especially considering I only ended up spending a little over $16 in paint (Benjamin Moore Early Dawn)….the rest reusing supplies I had on hand and a dresser I inherited with my mortgage. Vision definitely realized.

Finished project full of all kinds of fun!
I made the inspiration board several years
ago from a discount frame I picked up at
Ballard Designs Backroom

Now I'm just wondering...stencil or not?  Maybe a crisp white graphic fleur around the knobs?  Oh the possibilities...

The If At 1st You Don't Succeed Bedroom

It’s been 4 years since I signed my life away and tied my financial future to Bank of America for the next 30 years (well not BAC exactly but you know how it goes with banks and the buying and selling of mortgages).  My appointment with the lawyers was mid-day so that left me hours after signing to hang out at my new house and start the process of moving out of 1972.  So I immediately headed over and the very first project I took on was the master bedroom.  There were 2 major problems that needed fixing before I could spend one night in my new house and the master bedroom was one of them (the bathroom was the other). 

The master had some old very dingy wallpaper that had violets all over it on the walls and purple (lilac) ruffley curtains on the windows as well as a bluish/greenish/dirtish wall to wall carpet on the floor.

 

Mrs Johnson's Master Bedroom - she slept in this room
for over 60 years...I'm thinking she liked purple

I was told that there were hardwoods under that carpet so you know what the destiny of that carpet was…but first I wanted to take care of the walls & ceiling – no sense in pulling the carpet up until I had all of my painting done.

So, with all kinds of horror stories of removing wallpaper from my fellow home projecters fresh in my mind, every tool I could find at Lowes in my hands and with great trepidation I started on removing the paper. To my surprise it came right down – no tools, no wallpaper remover chemicals, no cursing…peeled right off the wall in strips.  Lucky or what?

This is my master the day I signed on that fateful
dotted line...It's hard to see the violets in this photo
so yo will just have to trust me...they are there and not
very appealing (to me).

Now, if you haven’t already figured out from my One Room Down post I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to paint color. But I also was very limited on time to assess, analyze, contemplate, etc. I had exactly 3 weeks before I had to be out of my apartment and into this house and had to not only finish this bedroom but also a total bathroom redo.

So with no time I selected a pinkish/peachish color paint, put it on the walls and hoped for the best.  It was a California Paint color called Peach Breeze so it wasn’t too pink…definitely had peach undertones but when I got it all finished I definitely had a pink room.  Not exactly what I was going for but it was pretty and I’d make it work with brown curtains & bed accessories to try to make it a little less “Barbie lives here”.

The Barbie version of my master bedroom...a perfectly lovely color
but really not for me.

So, 3+ years later and with a long list of house projects done (so I feel I can justify redoing a perfectly good room) I am so done with the pink…time to repaint! This time I went far more neutral with a Benjamin Moore color…Butterfly Kisses….don’t you just love that name for a bedroom color? I didn't want boring beige but did want neutral – I think this color is perfect and it really has a great read on the walls.

Finished Bedroom..light, airy, neutral but definitely not
boring beige

With this paint color the brown curtains & bed accessories now were a bit too neutral so off I went in search of some color. I was going to try my hand at making drapes but when I figured out it was going to cost me $600+ in materials alone and since I am really not a seamstress I decided that really wasn’t a great plan.

One of the guys who works for me in my corporate life mentioned that Pier One had some great options at really great prices. He was right and I found just the perfect drapes…not exactly what I had in mind when I first went looking but I absolutely love these (and they are lined)!

My Master now...hopefully I will sleep many more nights
here...maybe not 60+ years though. 

I now almost wish I hadn’t waited 3+ years for the redo but definitely love the finished product now.