Annie Sloan Napoleonic Blue

I recently painted a dresser for a 2-year old named Henry who was changing rooms because of his new little brother, Alfie. Aren’t those cute names? Henry’s parents had me paint this dresser for his nursery 2 years ago. It’s an old farmhouse style that they wanted in red:

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They are keeping it which doubles as a change table for baby Alfie and bought a small tallboy for Henry.

meg's dresser

It’s maple and very heavy with solid wood drawers that weigh a ton. I covered the whole thing with a coat of shellac because I have learned that that reddish stain used before poly finishes bleeds through paint, even latex. Henry’s mum wanted 3 colours: navy, yellow and cream. I was influenced by the wonderful furniture painted at Poppyseed Creative Living ( she is very talented) and created a colour-block effect.

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The colours are Annie Sloan’s Arles, Cream and Napoleonic Blue. I copied the colour-block on a few of the knobs and added the larger red knobs painted in Burgundy for an extra punch. The hardest part was getting the lines straight. I started with the drawers in the dresser and taped through the middle of the drawer where the holes are. Then I lined up the lines on the side. This required a measuring tape and marking with a pencil. I do not have a straight eye, so I will tape on a slant without markings. When using light and dark colours, I would recommend painting the light one first then the dark overtop. With this design there is a fair amount of overlapping.

henry's dresser1

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In retrospect, I might have mixed the Arles with English Yellow to get less gold but I am happy with the result. It has a wax finish which I like the look of better than poly and which is durable after it is cured, especially on something like a dresser. I tend to use poly on table or desk surfaces but have found that wax has worn well on all the pieces that are in my house.

Linking up with:

http://www.patinaparadise.com/2015/12/fridays-furniture-fix-20.html

Making Broken Beautiful | No. 18

http://www.mccallmanor.com/link-party/your-inspired-design-16/

http://piecedpastimes.blogspot.ca/

http://www.sadieseasongoods.com/snickerdoodle-sunday-link-party-112-end-of-year-announcement/

http://www.findingsilverpennies.com/2015/12/silver-pennies-sundays-link-party-and-features-149.html/

http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.ca/2015/12/show-and-share-no-293.html

http://www.elizabethandcovintage.com/

It is very easy to mix new colours with chalk paint. There is enough choice in the Annie Sloan line that you are able to create hundreds of variations and make just about any colour you could think of. This vintage cabinet is solid maple and had an orangey-brown stain with a thick poly finish. I decided to mix AS Antibes with Napoleonic Blue because I had small amounts of both on hand. The two colours make a beautiful teal or peacock blue.

cabinet2

I then dry-brushed Antibes over the teal to give texture and make it look more aged. The effect is lovely and is a blue-green lover’s delight. Originally, the top was the same colour but as is often the case, when working with a small amount of paint, I messed it up and didn’t have enough left over to repaint it. When I dry-brushed the green over the top, it highlighted a lot of deep scratches which were in the poly finish. At first, I painted over it with green but that was too bright, so I opted for a mid-grey which is quite neutral and almost looks like wood stain.

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cabinet 1

I lined the inside of the drawer with paper but I left the inside cabinet unpainted because the wood was in excellent condition.

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I painted the lion’s-head handles and added some gilding paste to them. They now have a verdigris appearance which matches the cabinet. You can see a slight variation in colour in some of the pix. If you have tried photographing turquoise, you know it is one of the hardest colours to capture accurately. The lighter photos were done with a flash which tends to distort the colour a bit.

cabinet 3