my new chest

...Of drawers! Meh heh hehhh


I've been wanting to do this for a long time. My room needed something black for sharp contrast and general sleekness. Enter my grandma's old chest of drawers.

Anthropologie has some lovely, severely overpriced, knobs. I got two red coral ones for contrast, but at $6 and with such intensity, I worried about over-doing it. I don't know, maybe I should have gone with something less severe? Simple, matte brass? The dangly one I got on sale for under $3.
I suppose the knobs will all be mismatched. I think the whole thing would look better with mismatched brass and clear glass knobs. Ah. Stupid qualms.
My favorite is this beautiful Sea Blossom Knob: mother of pearl and brass. Maybe just one.


So - what happened:

It was really beat up. Gashes like these across surfaces everywhere.

Puttied:


I had to sand it much more than I'd hoped. By hand and by hand-held machine. It's probably halved in size since I started.

My dad gave me whatever black paints he had (he had a lot). I didn't want the surface to be too reflective, so I started with a matte exterior paint. Two coats while sitting in my unventilated attic. V dizzy but how I love the smell of paint!

I didn't use the normal polyurethane to finish it. Still too shiny, so I used a layer of wood finish. It's actually tinted for oak, but you can't tell at all on top of the black.

It turned out perfectly slighty shiny.

I'm just a little afraid of the coral knobs. Too severe?

Putting recent buys and old mainstays to good use:

My neighbor had a similar chest that had really ornate brass handles covered with a thick coat of white paint. She was going to sell it to me for $10, but I resisted. When I went back outside an hour later, it was sitting at the corner. I didn't have time to stow it into my garage. By the time my cousin Lillian drove over, it was gone already!
I really wanted to sand it down and paint it a matte red and reveal the brass with lots of paint thinner. That would have been fucking lovely. Chinoiserie!