Feeling Navy Blue

Feeling Navy Blue

I'm always on the hunt for a great piece of furniture to makeover. I've mentioned before that I'm constantly searching Craigslist looking for something special. A few weeks ago I was lucky and found a wonderful dresser that I had to have. I sent the Hubby to pick it up and while he was out he texted me to tell me it was a great piece. That's how you know it's good, when the Hubby says it is!

When I buy a piece of furniture I look at it for a bit and think about what I want to do. I try very hard not get in a rut and do the same thing with each piece. With this piece I knew it needed to be a bit different and I had the perfect paint leftover from Hunter's dresser to make this happen. For some reason this dresser was saying "Paint me navy blue!"

Here's what the dresser looked like before.

The dresser was light blue, high gloss paint with flower ceramic hardware. It wasn't terrible the way it was, but I'm not a fan of semi-gloss paint on a piece like this.

I stripped down the top and there were a few layers of paint on top of the beautiful wood. Then I stained it a combination of dark walnut and kona, my favorites. A few weeks ago, I had someone email me and say they thought I was in a rut with staining the tops of the furniture all the time. My response to this was, yes that's probably right, but I feel like if the top is a nice wood, why not let it come through? I could definitely save a TON of time by just painting the whole thing. However, I feel like if I'm going to paint an old piece I owe it to the furniture to let it's beauty shine through when I can. Or maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment and chemicals :-)

The rest of the dresser I painted in Annie Sloan Napoleonic Blue. It's a navy blue, but with a bit more royal blue hues in the paint. I love this color. It's so classic, timeless and rich looking.

I didn't take a lot of progress pictures and I have no idea why! This project wasn't as challenging as the last few so I just went along and enjoyed each step this time instead of stressing about what was going wrong.

I love the Napoleonic Blue with the dark wax on top. It adds such richness and depth. Here you can see the difference between the drawers. The top drawer has clear wax with dark on top and the bottom just has clear wax. The difference is huge, no? I put on some new hardware as well (you can't see it in this picture obviously!) because the ceramic flower knobs weren't working for me. I went with clear faceted knobs that pop off the dark, navy blue.

Here it is all done!

I know I write this a lot, but I really love this one and think it's my favorite. I love the depth, character and details of this piece. Plus the knobs on this paint color!! LOVE THEM!

I like the combination of the dark stain with the rich, blue paint.

I love how the dark wax stays in the grooves and helps to show them off.

This detail is my favorite part of this piece.

I've spent a lot of time staring at this piece and admiring the beauty of the legs, the curves and the embellishments on this piece of furniture. After doing a few challenging pieces it was nice to really enjoy the process again and have a piece that worked with me and not against me. I'm starting to think I need a big warehouse to store all the pieces I really love and keep them all! Unfortunately I know the Hubby won't agree to that so for now I have to find this one a new home.

I hope you like this dresser as much as I do! Let me know what you think. I enjoy your comments and questions so keep them coming.

Have a great day and thank you for taking the time to read about my furniture adventure!!