little whale Archives - Revive. Refresh. Restore. Lakeside Restoration

This dresser project has been many many many months long. She has actually been completed for some time now, but I hadn’t gotten around to taking her “After” pictures until just recently.

Here is where she started; A room full of project furniture…of course. Try to ignore the rest and focus on the tall, yellowish French Provincial dresser to the right of center.

She was so very tired looking but was a quality, solid wood piece and very well constructed. The whole set of provincial bedroom furniture came from the original owners so there were no loose joints or missing pieces to contend with.

We decided to upgrade my daughter’s dresser (which had been a roadside find) at our summer cottage and replace it with this one. There are also two matching twin head/footboards that will eventually go into her room once they are revived. The only problem was trying to fit the furniture style into the relaxed family cottage. I’m not fan of distressed shabby furniture, so this would be an interesting cognitive exercise for me.

I like natural wood accents on my painted furniture projects, so the first step was easy – strip the top and see what was under there! The sweet cherry wood under that factory paint finish was then stained and sealed. I painted the body of the dresser creamy white (FUSION Mineral Paint Casement) and struggled a bit with what to do with the details. Paint a darker cream to highlight the features? A deeply contrasting color? Leave it all white (my significant other liked that idea). How to make it fit into the cottage…

After a few false starts I finally used FUSION’s Little Whale from their Tones for Tots line. Turns out to be a very cottagy (is that a word…it is now) accent color.

A little taste of Before and After.

I really like the way this turned out! I had originally planned to paint the hardware a brushed steel color, but frankly we needed the dresser installed STAT! I had already passed along my daughter’s old dresser and her room was turning into one big pile of homeless clothes. So I put the original handles back on with plans to update the finish later (we all know how that works…). But I think the contrast has grown on me – I like them just the way they are. And I’m not just saying that because I think I’ll never get to the task of refinishing them. Really.

If you look closely, one of the updated provincial headboards is to the right of the dresser (painted in the same Little Whale blue) – but that will be for another blog post – and once the other bed is finished!