A few weeks ago, my aunt was visiting with the minister and his wife from the church I attended as a child. Apparently, they commented that they had two little sets of drawers they were going to donate and my aunt told them I might be interested in them. She emailed me a photo and since I was going to be going to visit them to attend a vintage market with my two cousins, I’d be able to pick them up. When I got to their home, I could tell the two little dressers were actually the two sides of an old vanity desk. I had one like it when I was a child. It had a big mirror between the two sets of drawers and I loved it.
It’s missing the mirror and a “desk” that probably connected the two sides together, the tops were also pretty messed up, and each side had a broken knob. One of them also has a large chunk of wood missing on the back leg, which needs some extensive wood filling to repair. Despite those issues, I love the shape of these and they are a good size to use as bedside tables once repainted, so I was eager to get started on them when I got back home.
I prefer chalk-style paint, because I get predictably great results with it, but since these drawers have a fairly slick varnished surface, I thought they’d be great candidates to use milk paint on, and I envisioned lots of chippy paint perfection when I finished them.
I painted a coat of milk paint on one of them. I didn’t see any chipping occurring when it dried, but it needed another coat of paint, so I was sure it would happen after the next coat dried. The next day, I went out to my workshop and couldn’t wait to see how the milk paint did it’s thing overnight, but was disappointed to not find one single chip! Honestly, I was mad that I had wasted milk paint and not gotten the results I was hoping for. It looked like it still needed another coat of paint, but rather than waste more milk paint, I decided to use my homemade version of chalk-style paint for the final coat.
Again, I let it dry overnight. I don’t know what happened, but it decided to do just a little chipping after painting over it with the chalk-style paint, but just a little bit under the bottom drawer.
Since it now had just a little bit of chipping, I went ahead and used my palm sander to add some distressing to the rest of it, and replaced the top knob with a cute little white flower knob. The top drawer was pretty messed up on the front, so I painted it as well, but the bottom two drawers didn’t look bad, so I left that wood unpainted since the wood is pretty.
If our “guest house” (my glorified term for the outbuilding we’re remodeling) ever gets done, I plan to use them in there, but I brought the finished one in the house to get these photos of it. Isn’t this little cast iron Ice wagon toy adorable? It belonged to my father-in-law, and he brought it to me last time they came to visit.
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Blessings,
Angie
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Love the two tone and the top single drawer looks extra special with paint and glass knob.
This is just lovely Angie. Love the one painted drawer in contrast with the wood of the others. And the little cast iron horse and carriage are a treasure indeed!
Angie … The chipping and distressing looks natural. Leaving the two drawers natural is very nice as the wood grain is so pretty.
Those are really sweet for night stands. I had a pair like that once that someone had removed from a vanity. I loved the size.
Hugs,
Audrey Z. @ Timeless Treasures
It’s a cutie.
It’s perfect now, the addition of the white brings it to life.
These are so cute as side tables. Kind of makes me want to take apart a vanity I have sitting in my garage… 🙂
Angie, these are so pretty!
-Revi
I really like the two night stands. I tried milk paint once and nearly all of the paint came off on the second coat. Funny, I didn’t know it was supposed to do that and I was mad and your mad it didn’t. I am having a good chuckle just typing this.
The vanity parts are a great find, and I love how you can re-use them as separate pieces! Beautiful!
What beautiful pieces! They look so pretty painted and I love that you left some of the wood showing too!