We love creating because of the joy it brings.
And, in this case, Laura Louise’ project brought even extra joy as she repaired and restyled this ornate nightstand to help another.
We just love that!
Plus, the colors she chose for this are stunning together – regal, uplifting!
From Laura Louise:
This restyle was dear to my heart. I was able to grab this old night stand from my garage to restyle for a friend of a friend who could use support at this time.
Coming out of the garage, this piece was covered in dust and cobwebs so I cleaned it all up, sanded it down and then used my wood putty to fix the corners of most of the drawers because they were damaged.
I then used Paint Pixie’s Undercover Primer to cover the whole piece.
Next it was on to colors!
I grabbed lots of blues from the Magical Chalk Paint line and blended them all over the nightstand with the Caddie brush. I had so much fun at this point using a variety of colors including Watermelon Rind, Sugared Glass, Caribbean Cooler, French Macaron, and Blackberry Cobbler. The Caddie brush blended these so well together giving such a pretty tone on the nightstand.
Still, there were more colors to add.
Christmas Cookie, Key Lime Pie, and Sour Apple were next! I used the same Caddie brush from the blues without washing it and started blending all those greens onto the nightstand as well. I knew that the woman to receive this piece loves jewel tones so that’s what I was giving her!
After the green layers, I went back and added some more of the blues to the nightstand. While I was letting that dry I took the drawers out and painted the sides with a blue blend.
Even more fun!
I created a purple paint wash using an old mister bottle filled with about a quarter of water and several squirts of Magical Chaulk Paint in Figgy Pudding. A little shake and test spray on my painting tray to make sure it was the right hue and I was ready to create magic on the nightstand. I sprayed the paint wash allowing it to drip and fall all over the piece. So pretty!
In areas where it wasn’t covering how I wanted, I simply used my Water Girl to thin the paint wash or help it drip further down the piece.
After the paint wash dried, I used Bee’s Knees Wax in Icicle plus my Cera wax brush to cover the whole piece. The wax really helped the colors pop, bringing out their bold, beautiful hues.
Not quite done yet, though!
I added Liquid Pixie Dust in 24K gold to a little of the clear wax to create a custom gold wax. Using my fingers and a small paint brush, I added the gold wax all over the grooves on the front detail and the edges. It added a little more bling and helped finish the jewel tones effect that I know the woman who I created this piece for just loves.
From the blending to the spraying to the custom gold wax, I just had so much fun creating this piece!
Special note: this piece has no hardware! That was on purpose. I hope the woman who receives this will use it for years to come and decided it would be better for her to choose the finishing touch (the hardware) to add her own influence to the piece.
Check out Laura Louise’ full video for even more tips:
We have such admiration for this jewel-toned finish and learned some great tips from LL on how to recreate it.
And we love how she decided not to add the hardware (just yet).
What do you think of these colors and what hardware would you choose for this piece?
Let us know, below!
Until next time,
The Paint Pixies