Tailored Tallboy

A client brought me this behemoth chest of drawers that was absolutely booming with style at the get-go. I just love the rustic farmhouse aesthetic... barn-red with rope drawer pulls!

We took this wonderful tallboy and gave her the tailored makeover needed to fit into (and shine in) her owner's newly-built transitionally-styled home.

I especially loved this project as my client is also a creative-type and I feed off that wonderful artistic energy! Here you can see our brainstorming on the paint choice for the borders around the drawers and the side inlays:

We worked together to decide on a 50:50 mix of Annie Sloan Old White:Pure White for the drawer borders. Top border is Pure White, middle Old White, and bottom the 50:50, which we ultimate chose for the painted details.

The body of the tallboy was painted with two coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in French Linen, slightly sanded to reveal a bit of the underlying red, and then sealed for protection with Annie Sloan's Clear Wax. The quatrefoil drawer pulls were the icing on the cake!

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Owl Silhouette Project

The animal of the moment for Au is the owl. This summer she has devoured Kathryn Lasky's fiction series The Guardians of Ga'hoole . Au selected the species for the project based on their characteristic sizes and profiles. I created silhouettes in Adobe Illustrator based on the photographs Au found at owlpages.com . Next we will print and frame them for her room.

Navy Bed

Painting in blue is something that I haven't done much of, so when a client was interested in painting her son's vintage white bed in navy blue, it was really a great opportunity. Annie Sloan's Napoleonic Blue wasn't quite dark enough for the room decor, so we chose to finish the piece with a generous helping of Annie Sloan's Dark Wax. I preceded this step with a layer of Clear Wax (and let it dry overnight) because I always want to have max manipulation when it comes to the dark wax application. This pictures shows the difference between clear and dark waxes. The paint, followed by the dark wax to achieve navy blue, also created depth and movement in the painted surface. A single navy blue paint color wouldn't bring that style!

Yankee Doodle Re-Do

If you were a boy of the 70s growing up in New England, this piece may bring back fond memories of playing with your Lite Brite or He-Man, splayed out on the shag carpet in your den: I donated this fixer-upper to the Junior League of Washington's "tossed and found" charity sale last month. A massive cleanup, repaint with an Annie Sloan grey mix (leftover Paris Grey, French Linen, and Pure White) and reupholstery with fresh modern home decor fabric gave this toy bench a complete new look. So cute. Another of those projects the girls are sad to see go. Who knows, maybe we'll run across another Yankee toy box some day.

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