Graphite White-Waxed Dresser

One of the pieces that has had a lot of interest over at 

The Changing Season is the 

ASCP Graphite Dresser.

Would you believe me if I said that this piece was totally not planned?

I promise.

It wasn't.

I started out with this:

It shows up looking like pine in the picture, but it was really painted brown.

But, I loved the detailing and the hardware.

Scott was surprised when we were bidding for choice, that I picked this one first, 

over what later became the "Meh" dresser.

I'm a sucker for detailing.

My first plan was to just paint it with ASCP Graphite.

But it was REALLY blah.

Like I often do when a piece totally stumps me, 

I walked away from it and left it over night.

I fell asleep thinking about it (tell me I'm not the only person that does this) 

and by the time I drifted off, I had a vision.

A vision only.

With no idea how to execute.

Enter my handy-dandy Annie Sloan technique book.

In it, I remembered she colored her clear wax with paint.

Since I really wanted the details to stand out, 

I decided to color the wax with ASCP Pure White. 

* It only takes a little - like a little trickled in.*

Never having done this technique before, I was 

holding my breath 

that it would work.

(And I wouldn't ruin it.)

I carefully filled in all the detailing with the colored wax, using my wax brush.  

I then used a Q-Tip to remove any wax that had gotten outside of the edges.

I wound up with this:

While it was really cool looking, it still wasn't jumping out at me as "WOW".

So, I left it overnight again.

The thing about ASCP Graphite is that it shows EVERY imperfection in the wood.  Its very matte in appearance and for lack of a better word, it's blah.

In my opinion.  

It just needs a little something to dress it up a bit.

While the detailing looked really neat, the rest of the dresser was just "meh".

That is totally my new word for furniture that just doesn't have the "Wow Factor."

So, the NEXT morning, I was looking at it when it hit me.  

How about white waxing the entire top AND the entire drawers fronts 

to make them stand out more?  

That way, they don't get lost in the body of the dresser.

Totally worked.

I just added a little bit of paint (think:  An ounce) to a huge glop of the AS Clear Wax.  Using my wax brush, I brushed it on, being sure to go in one direction.  Be careful about this because you can really tell if your strokes aren't even and going in the same direction.

And the hardware?

Same technique, but reversed.

I painted the original hardware ASCP Pure White 

and then colored the AS Clear Wax with ASCP Graphite.

WINNING!

And I would have to say it one of my more favorite pieces that I've done.

Just because it's different.

And such an easy technique, once you try it.

And it can take something that's "meh" 

and turn it into something pretty neat.

At least I think so.

;)

XO,

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