Now, I have never really said this before, but it is very hard for me to paint wooden furniture at times. I grew up in an absolutely gorgeous log home (a dream home, actually) set in a state park, and I was taught to appreciate wood in its natural state. Once when I was painting a truly gorgeous piece for myself that wasn’t completely made out of wood, I had to keep telling myself, “It’s okay, it’s got some pressed board” over and over again. Ha! I will say the “pain” has worn off to an extent, but when you see this next piece, you will understand why I can’t bear to paint everything I get. Enter in this gorgeous bureau…
Isn’t that inlaid mahogany woodwork just stunning?
The original owner would never believe this is the same piece he sold me. Take a look at the before…
Obviously this piece has been forgotten in some basement with broken pulls, damage to the top, and missing veneer.
When I had agreed to purchase this piece having not seen it in person, I was pleasantly surprised to find this desk – hence the bureau name. The cubbies are so fun!
Cue the Mighty Mouse theme song… “Here I come to save the day!” (I know that dates me, but I don’t care. Everything gets better with age. tsk.)
I hit this bad boy with my favorite sander
like none other, and it totally paid off.
Just swoon-worthy…sigh…
My original intent was to stain the top and faces of the drawers and doors, but the top has some peeling veneer at the one edge and was too thin to be saved.
I even tried some linseed oil to see how it wood draw it out and it was just too much. Although it didn’t work for the top, it really emphasized the woodwork on the doors and drawers.
Not only did the linseed oil draw out the imperfection, but it just didn’t jive with the faces being made of a different wood.
So…I painted the top. I am so glad I did because it really set off that mahogany and now your eye is drawn to the faces instead.
Take note of the smaller drawers pictured above. Like I mentioned earlier, two of the pulls were missing or broken and I didn’t want to replace the entire set because these are the real deal – nice, heavy brass swag pulls that are irreplaceable.
It took me a while to wrap my brain around what to do with those small drawers. I searched over 4,000 listings on different sites trying to find a similar style or something that would coordinate. Nothing appealed to me.
Then bingo, it came to me what to do (gave myself a head-smack for not thinking of it sooner). I found a couple of antique pulls with back-plates that were the same length as the width of the hole spacing. Score! To fill the holes, I cut some wooden dowel plugs and glued them in, making sure to drill the pull hole before nailing the back-plate on. I’ve done this method before on other pieces, but those were painted.
Simple enough, right?
Love it? It has sold from
my shop, but there’s always more on the way! *Just a little note about my shop: We do ship and typically are able to give you a rate close to half of what it costs to freight furniture elsewhere. Just send a message if you’re interested.
Pin and share the makeover love! ♥
Now I can at least say I’m a partial wood purist. Being strictly one or the other is just too boring. Which are you, painter or purist?
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More makeover goodness like my bureau:
like none other, and it totally paid off.
