This mid-century style sideboard was in rough shape. It’s made from particle board, the worst material in the world (ugh). It has a thin layer of melamine on top with lots of scratches and water… Read More »Before and After: Mint Mid-Century Modern Sideboard
I’ve used a lot of spray paints over the years, but I keep going back to Rustoleum for my furniture projects. I use metallic gold spray paints for metal drawer pulls or furniture feet, but… Read More »The Best Metallic Gold Spray Paint
This narrow plywood and particle board sideboard was the most I have spent on a project, but with the popularity of mid-century modern furniture right now, it’s driving up the prices of everything that looks… Read More »Vintage Mid-Century Modern Sideboard Before and After
Confession, I usually avoid fixing up high boy dressers because they don’t fit in our vehicle, so they’re a pain to get home, but the owner of this piece wanted it gone so fast that… Read More »Vintage High Boy Dresser Makeover Using Benjamin Moore Paint
I found a very small sideboard a while ago that had good bones. Made from solid plywood and even had glass sliding doors. The base was solid so the first thing I thought of was, yes!… Read More »Painted Vintage Sideboard Before and After
I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted a painted dresser makeover, but the honest truth is that I haven’t had any projects! I’d be looking for one to work on every week with no luck, sure there were lots of very expensive dressers, solid teak cabinets etc, but my focus is to bring new life to vintage plywood dressers that I don’t feel guilty painting. Plus it just feels great to make something ugly beautiful again.
Here’s what I recently got my hands on, it’s a simple 6 drawer plywood and particle board dresser, nothing fancy really, but better than nothing! My neighbour was getting rid of it and all I had to do was wheel it into my apartment and it was mine.
I had to save this dresser! I couldn’t let this badly worn red paint live this way in someones home. It needed a makeover, even if it wasn’t perfect, just something simple to freshen it up. A few coats of white paint and some new hardware would do the trick. The drawers were in really rough shape and so was the top surface, I did what I could to fix it, but even after patching it and sanding, it’s still pretty rough, but the fresh coats of paint really helps.Read More »Before and After: Grey and Gold Painted Vintage Dresser
So it seems that the best time of year to find furniture is in the Spring and Summer, because people tend to just put stuff out in the back alley or take things to the… Read More »New Project: Vintage Mid Century Cabinet
It occurred to me that I haven’t done any recent posts of our apartment. We’ve lived here for a couple of years now and things are finally feeling settled. After initial renovations and minor tweaks along the way, I’d say things are pretty much where we want them. There will always be things we want to update or change, but those projects will get done eventually and when our budget allows for it.
Today I’m sharing the loft bedroom. I haven’t posted anything about this space because whenever I think to take a photo it’s far too dark or messy, plus it’s a very awkward space to photograph.
Check out the before photos:
Smelly old carpet and a dark purple ceiling making the low ceiling height feel even lower.
After a few weeks of procrastination during the holidays, we finally finished this vintage dresser project. It’s come a long way since we first got it. It was cleaned, patched and brought back to life.
Here’s what it looked like before we started working on it, yes at first glance it doesn’t look too bad, but it was scary. It had 1000 spiders in it from being left outside, so that took a while to get it clean and remove the musty smells.
The wood veneer was very dry and chipped in several places, the only area that was in decent shape was the top surface, the legs and the decorative pieces on the drawer fronts.
Luckily we were table to remove the decorative pieces on the drawers, making the painting process much easier and cleaner. The bow tie handles were also removed and cleaned up.
The first test was to find out if the vintage hardware was pure brass or just plated. You can do this with a magnet. If it’s solid brass, the magnet will not stick, unfortunately ours was plated.
Read More »Before and After: Vintage Dresser
I recently took some photos of a luxury bathroom renovation here in Vancouver, British Columbia. It may not be my personal style, but you can’t help but love the finishes in this space. The mix of traditional elements and slick modern design somehow fits together in perfect harmony. The soft pastels in the tile and wall colour contrast with the dark marble floors. I’m seriously obsessing over the floors, they have so much impact in the space, they ground the airiness of the pastel colours and bring in a bit of a masculine feature into a very feminine space creating a sense of balance. It all goes perfectly with the polished shower and vanity fixtures.
Below I’ve broken down the elements of this bathroom if you’re in the market for a renovation, or just very curious.
I was so eager to makeover this pair of dressers that I plain forgot to take a before photo of the highboy dresser. You’ll just have to visualize that it had the same finish as the matching dresser shown below.
Lets take a moment to talk about the dresser in its before state. It is so bland and lifeless. It’s a mix of 80s peach laminate with mid century legs and hardware. The brass plating was coming off the hardware and the “brass” on the legs was painted on, so that definitely had to go. The laminate was chipping and had some weird sun damage spots. I took a closer look at the drawers and discovered the laminate was placed over top of solid wood. Sadly this was only on the drawers, but it was a very exciting find!
The laminate was so thin, so it was fairly easy to sand off using an electric sander and a heavy grit sand paper. Once the drawers were sanded down, several coats of Danish Oil were applied until they were sealed and the finish was even.
The body of the dresser was sanded and patched because there were several dents and scratches. Once the surface was smooth, I applied a few coats of primer. The final top coat is Benjamin Moore Snowfall White in high gloss Advance.
Here’s the final result of the dresser and matching highboy:
A while back I refinished a junky white box into a modern mid century style night stand. I ended up keeping it for myself. Ever since then, Andrew has been looking for a vintage night stand to match mine. You could say he had night stand envy.
Here’s the piece we were matching it with, you can read more about this before and after over here
So we were on the lookout for something that had similar bones. We recently found this little guy:
This piece was frumpy, especially with that hardware, super short legs and cream paint. We wanted to give it a modern facelift. Right away we ripped off the drawer front, because we knew it was plywood and we wanted a nice wood front to match the other project I did. We went to the hardware store and got them to cut a piece of 1/4 inch maple veneer to size. If you ask your local hardware store very nicely, they won’t charge you for cuts. Well at least that’s what the awesome guys at Windsor Plywood did for us! I think it was because I smiled ever so nicely at the guy. It only cost about $13 for the drawer front and we have so much leftover wood for another project, but I’ve already decided I’m going to keep the thin sheet of veneer to use as a photo backdrop for now.
We brought it home and glued and clamped it to the drawer face. We just used regular wood glue and heavy duty clamps. It sat clamped for about a day. Once it was dry we applied several coats of danish oil and drilled holes for a modern drawer pull.
You’ll also notice we switched out the legs to give it more height so it would work better as a night stand and so it matched the other piece I did. You can find legs like this at Home Depot, but we got ours at a garage sale for pretty much nothing.
The entire piece was primed using CIL Smart3 Primer and the final coat was Benjamin Moore Advance in Tropicana Cabana and Snowfall White.
Here’s the final result of our modern vintage night stand:
Read More »Before and After: Vintage Night Stand
