Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Finding the Perfect Shade of White

Last summer I hit on a really great yard sale.  The guy running it had collected antiques for years and said he just needed to clean out some of his things.  A lot of the things were broken or damaged, but he was selling them super cheap.  It was amazing what I fit in my SUV that day.  I spied this vanity in the corner with an Eastlake mirror on it.  Now I'm no expert, but I know Eastlake and waterfall don't go together.
He wanted $70 for the pair, which isn't horrible if it is for yourself, but I knew it had to be for resale.  He said he would drop them to $50 and I said I would think on it.  It wasn't really the price at that point that bothered me, but the mirror has a square patch of silvering missing.  Anyhow I kept looking around and ended up with a side table, chandelier, handmade checker board, and an old wood tool box.  When I loaded up he said he would sell me the pair for $15 because he thought I would do something nice with them.  Now believe it or not I actually drove down the road for about a mile before I realized how stupid I would be to pass this up.  A few weeks later I found the chair at another sale.  I loved the look of it, but what really hooked me was the hinged seat with a compartment underneath.
I knew right away what I wanted to do with them.  The veneer was in really bad shape on the front of the vanity, but the wood wasn't bad.  I've been wanting to do a two tone white & wood piece, and figured this was perfect.  I wanted to stain the chair, but it was in worse shape than I thought.  So off to HD to look for a creamy white.  I finally picked two, and was surprised that one was Behr's Swiss Coffee, a paint I already had at home.  Well why buy it when you already have a half gallon or so.  It was still a little too stark and I didn't know what to add to tone it down and creamy it up.  Internet to the rescue - I just needed to add brown.  So, after some sanding, removing loose veneer, staining (Jacobean), priming, painting & finishing here they are all decorated up in our space at Paris Flea Market.  It ends up that my sister & brother-in-law found waterfall nightstands that they are painting to match.  I guess these were just meant to be.
Partying at:

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