mid century | Operation Home

So, yeah… the hunt was WAY less taxing than last time. Woo-hoo!!! Remember in this post, I mentioned that Drex (our first mid-century dresser) is now being used as a buffet in the dining space? And that we needed a new dresser for the bedroom?? Well…

I give you the newest member of our family. He’s a handsome, solid wood, Bassett mid-century gem of awesomeness.

Ya see, after we moved in, I began searching for a new dresser for Joey (he uses the dresser while I monopolize the majority of the closet. It’s just how we do.). I visited thrift stores and antique malls, but nothing. I tirelessly searched Craigslist, and after emailing no fewer than ten sellers about their dressers, I came across this ad…

It was towards the end of the 3000+ listings for dressers, so I figured there was NO WAY this dresser was still available. I mean, it had great lines and the original wood finish. Plus, it was listed weeks ago. So, color me shocked when the seller responded that not only was it available, but she’d dropped the price to $90. Um… Where do I sign???

We arranged a time to meet and my dad and I went to check it out. Seriously, I was shocked when I saw it. It was SO much more lovely than it looked in the Craigslist picture. It reeked of quality and character. The seller told me that she’d been trying to sell it for months and it hadn’t sold, hence, multiple price reductions. I was absolutely dumbstruck by this fact and jokingly stated that it was simply because I hadn’t come along yet. 😉

I paid the nice lady and brought him home. I shined him up with my favorite combo of Restore-A-Finish and Feed-N-Wax (for more detailed instruction on how to use these products, check out this post or this one). The Restore-A-Finish covered all the nicks, dings and scratches and the Feed-N-Wax shined him up beautifully. And that was all he needed. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

And so begins the jumping off point for our new room.

The rest of our bedroom looks like this currently, since we basically just plopped down the furniture on moving day and left it at that…

I think it’s definitely time to lose our current bed frame in exchange for something more simple and masculine to offset the more feminine bedding (Joey’s actually been lobbying for this for a while, thus engaged in major fist-pumping when I broke the news that it was finally time.). So, we’re gonna sell it (any takers?). The nightstands may get a little makeover as well. And the paint color…. Oh, the paint color. It’s hard to tell from these pics, but in person, it’s straight-up purple. And it’s dark. Darker than it appears in this pic. I really despise it more and more every moment that I spend in this room. It feels so oppressive to me. Which just goes to show how colors affect people differently. This color fit the previous owners decor well. And it looked nice with their stuff. But it just isn’t us. The only window in the room isn’t very big in comparison to our last house and the backyard is so shady that the room gets little light most of the time. Thus, we need a more neutral color in a lighter tone, stat. I actually already purchased the paint for this room and am getting on that soon…. I’m so totally stoked about it, too. I’ve mentioned it before, but I LOVE painting walls. It’s just so therapeutic and satisfying. Once the room is painted, I can work on the fun stuff… curtains and art and such.

Oh, and let’s not end this post without mentioning this ceiling fan….

Not only is it incredibly ornate and feminine which DEFINITELY doesn’t jive with the sleek, mid-century vibe that we’re going for in this house, apparently the blades were painted….

… but the paint didn’t take. We’ll be replacing it with another ceiling fan (’cause I mean, it’s Texas). I know the design world tends to shy away from ceiling fans (not that I flatter myself to actually think that I’m a part of the design world), but I’m all about attractive-function. We can find a more stream-lined fan that better suits the feel of the space. No doubt.

And while we’re on the topic of lighting fixtures…

Boob, be gone!!! We’ll be replacing this anatomically-correct bugger that’s in the atrium area between the bathroom and closet, as well.

So, that’s the plan. Stay tuned… I’ll have a paint update for ya soon. 🙂

Ever notice how a coat of crisp, white paint can totally jazz up an item like nobody’s business?? So simple. So basic. But absolutely transformative. That’s exactly how I feel about our bedroom chair right now. A coat of white made all the difference in the room. But, let’s start from the beginning… remember in this post, I showed this corner of our bedroom??

And due to the abundance of conflicting brown tones between the dresser and chair, I posed the question as to whether I should paint the chair or simply spring for a new one? The vast majority of feedback that I received was that I should paint this badboy… But, I just wasn’t ready. After publishing that post, I hemmed and hawed (and otherwise procrastinated) as I continued to shop for The Chair Of My Dreams, just to be sure. I scoured Craigslist, nearby thrift stores, garage sales… But, nada.

My inner battle was that the chair’s finish was pretty as-is. It just didn’t go with the room. And, unfortunately, I didn’t have another place to stash it. So, I questioned whether I should sell the chair to someone who liked it as it was versus change the finish. Ya see, I’m kind of a wood purist… I have trouble painting wood-toned things unless the current finish is unsalvageable or horrendously ugly.

Then, one day, I gave the chair a thorough cleaning and realized that the finish wasn’t as great as previously thought. There were scuffs, splits and missing pieces as shown below (sorry for the blurry pic)…

And this was the deciding factor for me…. The Chair Would Be Painted.

I began by taping off the legs as seen in this Instagram shot (it’s the only pic I have of this step)…

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the legs, but I knew that I didn’t want them to be white. Next, I thoroughly wiped down the wicker with this deglosser to rough up the surface and prepare it for primer…

Next came priming. I had to paint the chair inside due to weather, so instead of my usual shellac primer go-to, I chose Kilz Premium primer since it’s low VOC (ie: MUCH less stinky). I started with a small nubby roller since the chair’s weave was pretty flat (and I wanted to see if I could get away with it)…

It covered pretty well, but still left some gaps where the weave intertwined.

There was definite yellow bleed-through with the first coat of primer and after learning the hard way while painting my eight dollar chairs, I knew that a second primer coat was an absolute MUST. That is, unless I wanted my paint to show bleed-through as well. I applied the second coat with a brush to ensure that I covered all the nooks and crannies…

I waited until the primer was fully dry then reinspected for bleed through. I found a few spots like this…

So, those spots got a third coat. At this point, I started to see glimpses of what the final result would look like. The modern lines of the chair were really starting to stand out with the new white color (which *might* have caused me to jump up and down excitedly whilst sing-songing “Why didn’t I do this sooner??”… Always a good sign halfway through a project). 😉

Next, I caulked some of the more obvious holes in the wicker since they pretty much stuck out like sore thumbs after priming…

Once the caulk was dry, I applied 2 coats of Sherwin Williams Proclassic in extra white semi-gloss, which I had leftover from when I painted our foyer cabinets. I used a 2 1/2 inch angled brush as I found this worked best in covering all the grooves in the wicker. I removed the tape, and after a quick evaluation, decided to simply leave the legs their original color.

And here’s the final result…

It’s EXACTLY what I was hoping for. EXACTLY. Crisp, white, glossy, modern-looking. And most importantly, although it shines in its own right, it recedes back visually in the whole scheme of the room to allow Drex and our new artwork to take center stage. It amazes me how every time I walk in our bedroom now, I have a new appreciation (and admiration) for our beautiful mid-century dresser, whereas before it just kind of blended into the sea of brown. Observe…

And a before shot…

And a WAY before shot…

Our master bedroom has come a long way so far, in my opinion! I like how the room has progressively gotten lighter and brighter. It puts me in a good mood every time I walk in there.

On a final note… we’re finally back from our third and final trip (…for the month. So strange.) and things should be getting back to normal soon. This weekend, Lucas and I drove down to Austin to meet Joey since he was already down there for a work training. It was really fun to take Lucas on a trip… and Austin is just awesome anyways. It’s hilly and wooded… you almost forget that you’re in Texas! We hit up some of our favorite restaurants… Trudy’s , Hula Hut, and we were introduced to The Bouldin Creek Cafe which was delish (especially for a gluten-free person like me). We drove around a lot… looking at all the beautiful houses and scenery (I was too spell-bound with all of the gorgeous, full-o’-character homes to actually take pictures of them, unfortunately). In any case, now that we’ve returned, I’ll be getting back to my usual schedule. So, anyways, thanks as usual for stopping by and I hope ya’ll have a great week!! 🙂