Annie Sloan Chalk Paint to the rescue!

The Ikea three-drawer dresser we had, the Aneboda, was discontinued about a year ago. But oh, did we get lots of use from two dressers and one tall five drawer dresser. Years and years. We still had one which lives in our guest room and is in beautiful shape. Not a thing wrong with it and still very solid. But the time had come (was overdue?) for a paint job. And new hardware.

The finished product:

Ikea Aneboda dresser IMG_0386_wm

This from an old catalog image:

b583a82dc70b2534b20e0c83f8ebc9c2

And this, in situ, almost ready for the transformation to begin:

IMG_9888_wm

Oh, those wooden “handles”…why, oh why, didn’t I change them out years ago?

I used “Napoleonic Blue.”

The first coat of this paint is always kind of “iffy” as it looks just awful. AWFUL. Streaky. Thin. No coverage. If you’ve never used this kind of paint…well, just be patient. Wait a few hours; let this first coat dry thoroughly, and wait until you see the second coat!

IMG_9892_wm

Here, the lighting is terrible as I took this at night but you can see the difference between coat #1 and coat #2.

IMG_9893_wm

I considered keeping the top surface the original wood; but no, I wanted a total redo. I thought of staining it a dark mahogany, but this “wood” doesn’t take a stain well at all. So paint it had to be. I tried going with this dark “Graphite” color:

IMG_9941_wm

To backtrack just a bit: once you have painted your piece, you then apply wax. You can either use a clear wax or a dark wax. I chose the dark as I wanted this to be a deep indigo color. My only problem was that the Graphite top was then not much different in color or depth from the rest of the piece.
Here you can see the Soft Wax with the brush sold with Annie  Sloan products. Yes, it DOES cost but I now know, from experience, that it makes a HUGE difference. So I would advise you to buy it! I also invested ($2.00?) in a pack of soft rags from Lowe’s. Again, I would advise buying these.

IMG_9945_wm

Look at this gorgeous hardware! What a huge difference. These pulls are from
Going Knobs

IMG_0383_wm

Here, you can just see the top surface. Not much difference in color.
I am also going to have a piece of glass cut for the top. It’s sort of an old-fashioned way of finishing off a painted piece and I like it. I remember my Mother’s dresser, and her dressing table, with glass tops and lots of family pictures underneath. So, it’s a bit of a throwback…but one that is coming back into fashion!

IMG_0385a_wm

To finish it off, for now, I put down the round rug we had been storing for my daughter. Pretty perfect!

IMG_0388_wm

We will be redoing the carpet with a low pile Berber type carpet; and probably painting the walls white. And here is the mirror to go over the dresser:

Screen Shot 2016-02-28 at 2.18.35 PM

{source}

There’s more. But I’ll save that for another time.
If you have questions about Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and it’s use, please do email me. I’ve used it several times and am a huge fan. If you are local, you can see the entire line, take a workshop, and buy at
Two Old Birds in Apex or Raleigh.

signature2