painted summer series - part 1

I've been madly painting everything in sight lately so I am dubbing this the Painted Summer.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let me tell you about this dresser I have. I do believe this is where my paint fixation began. When I bought her in the early 90s, she was the height of style...dark red mahogany.  And shiny. Blinding in fact; she was shellacked within an inch of her life.

Did I mention it was the early 90s?

But she had great lines and her size was just right.

So a few years ago, we whipped out the orbital sander and started by taking off that shiny finish, which was surprisingly easy. Another couple of passes with the sander and most of the dark red was gone too.

Swell. Now what?

We decided a 2-tone dry brush paint job was just the ticket. I dearly love the dry brush technique because it's meant to be messy and hasty looking. And that's just my speed.

I daresay we should've primed the girl first but we didn't. The first coat was a beautiful grey blue from Benjamin Moore called Oxford Grey. On top of that we dry brushed a very light coat of a grey lavender that I'm ashamed to say I didn't take note of. The closest is Benjamin Moore's Angel's Wings [awww].

A little leftover white from the garage was roughly rubbed into the crevices especially along her lovely Queen Anne's feet and around the scroll appliqué at the dresser's bottom.

[adore those feet].

A quick trip to the local architectural salvage store to pick up some mismatched pulls and keyhole and we were all set!

[yea that's a fake keyhole!]

I wish I had a picture of her in her previous life so you could see how much happier she is...she's so relaxed and chill now.