Singing the Blues...

Yesterday Josh returned home after a month long stay at Jon and Gail’s place in Massachusetts. Jon offered Josh a job working with him in his flooring business. Josh is no stranger to long summer trips away from home and now that he is 17 he has dreams of buying himself a truck some day. He jumped at the chance to help Jon and put some money into savings. The last month flew by and we are glad he is home again. Face time on the iPods every few days made him feel not-so-absent from us.  He worked hard and learned a lot, got to go to Fenway to see the Red Sox play (and win!), went kayaking and so much more. We are grateful he had the opportunity. And more than a little jealous that he made it to Fenway before the rest of us.

Anyway, last week while browsing TJ Maxx I spotted a quilt that I thought would be great in Josh’s room; it was full of rustic colored stripes. That quilt set an entire room remodel into motion. Tell me I am not the only one that does crazy things like that?! The room was begging for something and the quilt was just the catalyst to make it happen. Having a deadline helped too. Greg, Kaleb and I worked hard for 5 days to pull it all together before Josh came home. I will post pictures tomorrow of how it all turned out.

One big part of the remodel was a dresser make over. I purchased this dresser a couple of months ago at a thrift store for $50. As you can see by the photo, it sat so long it became another work surface in the garage.

The dresser is made of pine and although it looked a little dated, it was in great shape.  It had signs of a quality piece… drawer dusters, dovetail joints and wheels hidden underneath for easier moving. The brass acorn shaped pulls were cool but I knew I wouldn’t be keeping them on this piece. It sat in the garage for 2 months because I wasn’t sure what direction to go with it in terms of paint color.  Once we decided to remodel Josh’s room, I used the quilt to dictate my color choice…Annie Sloan’s Napoleonic Blue.

Now she is singing the blues, but in a good way.

I knew this dresser had potential but it turned out better than I had hoped.

Because of the pine and possible bleed through with the knotty areas, the whole dresser got a coat of Zinsser shellac. I also gave the insides of the drawers a coating of shellac just to freshen things up. The dresser then got 2 coats of Annie Sloan’s Napoleonic Blue chalk paint. After a coat of clear wax I distressed the piece and then did a final coat of dark wax. Greg drilled holes in the drawers to accommodate the new nickel colored bin pulls I bought.

Things I learned:

-Shellac inside the drawers is a good thing and I will probably do that again on other projects

-I {heart} bin pulls

-I now know how the Karate Kid felt doing all that waxing, lol. I got some blisters and sore arms from this project.

-dark wax is a lot less scary over dark paint

The dresser looks great in Josh’s room but I did give him the option of going back to his old dresser if he wanted. I think the blue one is staying.