Antique secretary make-over with homemade chalkpaint

In my very first post, I showed you this old, worn out secretary desk I bought.

I actually dont know what time-period it originates from, but I would guess some time around the 1950`s. 

It had a very dark sort of laminated color. I think the right woord would be plywood. 

Heres a before picture:

You can see here that I took off the handles, and plastered the screw holes.

I chose to this because:

1) The handles werent "all that" 

2) One handle was missing

So I figured that the smart thing to do would be to just remove them and replacee them with the perfect ones (still have`nt found them, though....).

There was allso a couple of places on the drawer that the plywood had chipped of, so I put som plaster there to.

Just look at all those tiny drawers and the pillars. They make a beautyfull detail. Unfortunately the keys didnt come with. 

Look at this paper the former owner put in the bottom drawe. This was a very common thing to do, maybe to protect the wood?

                                                                                           

Here is the secetary desk closed up. The desk can be pulled out or in. Offcourse in this case it is pulled in. All in all it was a quite functional piece, except for one VERY tricky drawer....

Will have to work a little on that one.

So.... after a good cleaning and a little sanding (I try to avoid that as often as possible. Simply because I hate sanding) the secretaire was ready to be painted. And with what else then chalkpaint?! 

I love chakpaint. For so many reasons. Will make a post of that some other time, and how I make my own.

I had allready decided, after spending quite some time on Pinterest looking for inspiration, that I wanted the piece to have two colors. One for the cabinet it self, and another one for the drawers. Here`s a color palette I took inspiration from:

(source)

I first gave the whole piece a layer of a light white-ish color called "mist". Then I painted the drawers with a green color called "prism green". It fits perfect with my other interior. 

Getting inside this compartment here was a bit tricky. In fact, it was impossible to get in there with my brush. So I took a cloth, dipped in the painting and rubbed it all over. 

I made shure that the green didnt cover completely, since I wanted the white to shine through. So I started of carefully, allmost drypainting the drawers. The thing with chalkpaint, is that it dryes so fast! I was done in a couple hours, and then I could start sanding. This is a great way to make furniture look old and distressed. When I sand, I try to think of wich areas that would get most worn and torn the naturally way. You know, if this was a really, really old piece. 

Then it is time for the waxing. This is where the magic happens! I love the affect that waxing makes!

It really gives you the impression that the piece has a history and a soul. And it looks real! I do this by using first clear wax, then go over again with dark wax to make the wanted effect. But it is very important that you give all the surfaces a really good coat with the clear wax before putting on the dark wax. Or else you could risk the paint to suck up the dark color, not being able to rub it off again.

And here it is! I love the detailing on the pillars. The sanding and waxing works perfect together.

And there you have it! Only missing the hardwear now, then it is complete.

What is youre opinion? Would love to hear about it:)

Shared over at Prodigal Pieces