Baby Blues.

Well friends, have you noticed that I am LOVING the refinishing stuff?!?  In fact I am so in love with my refinishing that I am neglecting my blog a bit....I hope you can understand?!?

I mean the searching for the perfect piece, then the painting and the distressing and then the waxing and decorating....I mean it ends up being a bit time consuming (but in the best way possible!).

So what do you think about this one?  

I took a chance and paid the $17.00 it cost to take this treasure home.

{Yes I refinish in my living room....I love watching a good movie or show while refinishing.}

And here is how it turned out:

Louis blue matches just great with the blues in my bedroom 

& adds a pop of color in a wonderfully whimsical way.

I tried....I mean REALLY tried to salvage the pulls/knobs/handles that originally came with the piece but COULDN'T get it to "feel" just right....(I painted them two different colors, then gave up...) soooooo

I added some of my LOVES the good ol' card catalogue pulls.

And they let me add a little pop of yellow with some cardstock....eventually I will add some real labels (with my typewriter of course) once I get this thing all organized and functioning...until then they are blank.

And let me explain the "goodnight sweetheart" you see, when my sister and I were little my dad used to tuck us in at night and sing the song "Good Night Sweetheart" to us.  EVERY. TIME.  And so when I thought about a quote or a few words I would want to see before bed this is what I came up with.

I know the wood isn't perfect, but I like the color contrast to the dark wood otherwise in my bedroom and I like the little texture that it adds.

I picked up this table runner at TJ the other week...I LOVED it in my dining room....shoot now I am going to go back and find another one!

Oh man, even when I look at the picture and read that I have such great feelings and thoughts about the times when dad would tuck us in!

So I want to give you a couple of tips about what I did to achieve this "look"

It is not perfect and I can only tell you what I did...

So, I first painted everything with a nice coat of louis blue chalk paint.

Then I distressed all of the corners and details of the dresser.

Next I waxed the piece to add a protective layer but used brown wax on corners and edges and a few other places just to add some detail.

I then got worried that the dresser was looking to dark and slightly dirty...ugggghhh! 

So I "white washed" the entire thing.

For this step I used a wet paint brush, and some white chalk paint, I went over everything lightly and quickly with the wet brush and then smoothed and blotted the white in with a rag.

Finally I re-sanded everything.

That was definitely not my intended process, it was what I did to finally love the piece.

And now I do.

I don't know that I would buy a blue dresser, but I love that I could paint one and have fun doing it.

I like the pulls with the vintage piece...it doesn't necessarily "match" style-wise, but I like it.

Oh and did you notice the vintage "Winnie the Pooh" book under my lamp?  Only twenty five pennies :o) 

at a garage sale!

What do you think? 

I am linking up at a few of these wonderful parties this week!