Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » before and after: christine’s dresser

this beautiful before & after comes from artist and former scad working class studio intern, christine hancock. christine rescued this old dresser from it’s previous owner who has repainted it with too many thick coats of crackle paint and marble-effect paint on top. explaining that it wasn’t the best quality piece to begin with, christine decided to strip the paint (an arduous process in itself) and paint the body a gunmetal grey. after the body dried she painted the drawers white to add contrast and then painted turqouise inset details to bring out the carved shape. the final step was painting the original hardware grey to tie it all together. i think the result is beautiful, crisp and refined. great work, christine! you can check out more of christine’s work (that’s her painting of her cat dusty on top of the dresser below) right here on etsy.

[ps: have a before & after you'd like to share on d*s? just shoot me an email right here with your images]

[pps: want to chat about wedding bands? my new post is up at martha stewart and i need some advice on matching rings vs. non-matching rings]

before and after

Thanks everyone! The paint I used was regular wall paint from Lowe’s in a satin finish so it’s protected without any sealant (I’ve tried spraypaint in the past and found it to rub off). The nice thing is that you can get it in pints, so you don’t have gallons of weird colors lying around. Also, a small foam roller rather than a brush will keep the large areas smooth.

That’s fanTAStic! The funny thing is, I have a BUNCH of pieces of the EXACT same furniture, which I am to understand was a Sears special in the 70s. A friend of mine actually had them as her childhood bedroom furniture. I got two different groupings from a yard sale and a classified ad, and they all match — 2 highboy dressers like the one Christine refinished, a six-drawer lowboy dresser, a nightstand, and a full-size bed frame. Well, I had the bed frame, and loaned it to my brother’s family, but it didn’t hold up to my niece’s abuse, so it was discarded.

Originally, they are a cream-colored faux woodgrain veneer with “gilt” accents. Indeed, they are not high-quality pieces, but I really dig the hardware. I may have to try painting them, ’cause they sure aren’t my style as they are now!

WOW you clever girl Christine that is a crisp timeless piece of furniture you just created! Another fun way of painting when you just can’t decide what colour to go for; is to go to the mis-tint section of your paint store. They are markdown cans of paint and often you can find smaller cans of similar colour…I have even found the colour that I wanted to paint with.

My Mom and I found one of these for my sister (same style, different finish, same handles), and stripped it down, the wood underneath was beautiful. The top is a cherry wood, and various others, it made staining interesting, but very worth it!

I LOVE THIS! I have this exact furniture in my bedroom at my parents house, which now that I have moved out they are planning to refurnish. I was just wondering if you could disclose what brand of paint and respective color titles were used in Christine’s before and after piece.

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