The Lovely Linen Press

Yeah!! I Have a “before” picture! I’m taking these “Before” shots with my cell phone so the quality is as good as it gets, but at least I am stopping long enough to take a photo! I don’t know why I cannot get my act together and go get the camera but I just can’t seem to do it!!

Before… some (very little) missing veneer, BEAUTIFUL () gold knobs from when… maybe the 70’s…clearly replacement knobs..

Also, if you look really closely you can see where the original appliques were removed..

Check out the FABULOUS drawers inside! Just love them!!

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This one looks pretty easy and it would have been if I wasn’t so stubborn!

I filled all of the missing veneer with putty, added new appliques to the front panels and then I painted all of those areas flat black…. I knew I wanted to heavily distress this piece and wanted the undercoat that showed through to all be black. Of course I removed the old knobs.. and saved them.. why? I don’t know but I did… and then this is where it all went wrong… painfully….ridiculously….wrong!!

I had removed the doors, to attach the appliques, and I had a VERY hard time getting the screws out. They were old and some were stripped so I decided I would just replace the hinges.. no biggie right? WRONG!!! Let my little lesson save someone else… I found hinges that were similar in size but the holes didn’t line up (oh yeah, don’t want to forget to tell you they were $14 a pair.. seriously!) So I filled the old holes using a combination of glue, skewers and filler, let them dry and then drilled new holes… ok so at this point I was happy to be moving forward, the hinges went on nicely, but it was very difficult to hang the doors and drill new hinge holes by myself… but I did it.. door one on and aligned great! Door two on and aligned great! Now this is where I ALMOST lost it… I went to shut the doors and they would NOT shut together.. see the new hinges were just ever so slightly THICKER than the old hinges.. BUYER BEWARE… I didn’t have ANY idea that could be an issue but clearly it is! I couldn’t use the old hinges because they were bent from me trying to remove them…. So onto plan “C” (sometime you have to have several plans)…

I went to Lowe’s and purchased these great decorative hinges that mount on the front of the cabinet, each one holds 12 pounds and they were the answer to my dilemma! HOWEVER, in order to use them I had to fill all the screw holes and rebuild the cutouts where the hinges were. While that is not a big deal, it does take a long time for everything to dry and then I had to break out the black paint again… ARGH!!!

I hope at this point you don’t “feel” my pain but you can understand how frustrated I was… Next time I will lay the dresser on it’s back and attach the applique’s that way!! See there is always a lesson in every mistake ‘cause I can GUARANTEE you that I will not be making this mistake again! And if I do I will not admit it

NOW… I was ready for the paint. I painted the cabinet in Versailles, another Annie Sloan chalk paint color, and what I think it is a very pretty green. The interior drawer fronts were painted with clay paint by CeCe Caldwell’s, in Smokey Mountain, a beautiful blue! After distressing, everything was waxed and buffed! I added some great lion’s head drawer pulls that I had painted metallic silver… just love them!

So here she is…

A close up on the new wood appliques and the awesome lions head pulls…

An inside peek at the drawers.. I could not get the color in the picture to come out right for some reason the cabinet looks faded and the drawers too blue.. the color is more like the picture above!

So what do you think? Where or how would you use this piece if it was yours? Click on the little comment bubble below to leave a comment…

Thanks for stopping by!

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