One of my oldest and dearest friends, Laura, now lives less than a mile from me. I invaded her neighborhood in our recent move and now we get to spend lots and lots of time together! (Apparently day in and out circa 1994-2000 wasn't enough for me; also after college she moved to Fayetteville so we had 2005-2007 together).
Laura is such a creative cat and in the past few years has become quite the artist. I'm commissioning her to do a few paintings for my new house and can't wait to buy canvases and get her started. You will also be seeing some of her crafty creations on here in the coming months as well as we are daring to reupholster a cane back chair together (*gasp!).
After we moved back to Arkansas, I was doing an updated tour of the house she's been in for 5+ years now eww'ing and aww'ing over all her amazing art and updates to the house and for some reason almost came to a halt when I saw this in the guest bedroom:
Apparently I've seen this piece before, as there are two pictures evidencing this from my wedding day (I got dressed at Laura's house since it's down the street from the chapel in which we were married):
courtesy of Raining Light Photography
courtesy of Raining Light Photography
I'm unsure how I missed the fabulousity of this for so many years, maybe it was the placement in the room, maybe because it was my wedding day and it was all about moi. Who knows, facts are I see it now and have a crush on it.
Laura tells me that Will's mom (Will being Laura's wonderful husband) gave him this piece of furniture. "It was blonde wood and had been in the family for years and she didn't want it anymore, but we weren't allowed to throw it away. So, it sat in our garage gathering dust since it didn't go with anything in our house." Laura and Will have a much more contemporary house. A few years ago in the fall Laura woke up one day and thought "Today, I want to paint." (I have days like that. I had one last week to paint the guest bathroom so I took a bar of soap to Spectrum Paint (my Benjamin Moore dealer) and had them match it and voila! new bathroom.) Laura had to do a Wal-Mart run for grocery shopping and she happened upon the color "called Red Pepper. Probably the fall leaves had something to do with my choice. It's a satin enamel interior latex paint and covered well. I did 3 coats and since it was shiny, no polyurethane." Laura redid this piece in 2008 so we aren't sure if Wal-Mart still carries this color.
I agree with Laura, the paint job she did is just perfect and you can still see a bit of wood tones peeking through the paint. Using poly on it would have made it too shiny, and I prefer a non-poly look on antiques. Laura used an electric sander on the to get off the original poly and stain. Beth Note: Always sand with the grain of the wood!
I love how Laura thinks outside the box. She replaced the pulls on the top two drawers with crystal-like knobsshe found at Target. It really transformed the piece. I also love the keyholes; newer furniture pieces tend to not have those suttle touches.
It's always amazing to me how a simple change of pulls and/or knobs can completely transform cabinets or furniture. Along with the amazing color choice, the knobs really made this dresser become a Wow! piece.
As you can see, this beautiful dresser now fits perfectly in Laura's more contemporary home. Remember, the best designers must be capable of mixing old and new! I'm all about refurbishing furniture instead of buying new (Reuse and Recycle, please), and will have tons of examples of such in the future like this. If you have something you want to contribute, please share with me!
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