Ombre Painting and Product Endorsement!

Things are chugging along at the house. We've learned some important lessons recently- the biggest of which is "you can not believe a contractor when they give you a timeline." Apparently it always takes longer than they say.

Still, we are making some progress with our projects. The kitchen is coming along, but I'm holding back any photos of that until we can do the big reveal. The bathroom is still a shell, but that should change over the coming week. All of our new appliances came in today- that was exciting! There was an awful lot of shiny to 'ooh' over this morning.

When we packed it in this evening, we had a few things solidly completed- I'm even going to share one of them with you!

First though, a totally unsolicited product endorsement!

Best Stuff EVER.

Floetrol is an additive for latex paint. You pour 8oz of this stuff into a gallon of paint, and it virtually eliminates brush and roller marks. We used it with the cabinet paint, and again on the project I'm about to showcase. I can not believe how well it works. I wish I'd known about it years ago. For $8.00/bottle, it's totally worth it if, like me, you're amateur painter and a perfectionist. I highly recommend it!

ANYWAY. One of the projects we've been working on is upcycling a dresser and nightstand we inherited from my Grandmother. My Grandmother was a terrific artist, and had hand painted these pieces- but we're not really into roses on lattice and hummingbirds. So, hopefully she's not glaring at us from the grave. Sorry Grandma!

I really liked the shape of the pieces, if not the paint, and I thought it would look really neat with an ombre treatment on the drawers. 

So first, we sanded down the old paint job, and used tack cloth to clean them off.

Dresser, after sanding.

Nightstand and drawers.

Nine drawers! Hooray!

Next we painted the bodies of both pieces a medium grey. I think it was called 'Down Pour', by Behr. We added the floetrol to the paint for this project, because I wanted it to come out smoothly. We got a quart of the grey, and I think we maybe used a third of it for two coats. We will have to find something else to use it on!

Grey!

Tarps are important. I am a messy painter.

We let those dry, and started on the drawers. We had purchased one quart of a dark purple color (Wild Iris, maybe?), and one quart of white. We painted all of the bottom row drawers the dark purple, including the bottom drawer for the nightstand.

See? Messy.

I have painting clothes for this reason.

While those were drying, I poured 4oz of the dark purple into a mixing container. Then, I attempted to pour 4oz of white into the same container, but... I think it got a little out of hand. The color I created wasn't really suitable for the second row, but it was pretty- so we decided to use it for the top row! We let all of those drawers dry, and worked on something else for a while. Then, we came back and put a second coat on all of those drawers. After that, I took the light purple I'd created, and added more of the dark purple to it until we got a middle tone. Thankfully, that worked! We painted all of the second row drawers faces the middle tone, let it dry and applied a second coat.

Behold, the finished product:

Gorgeous!

Yep. That's an orange wall.

I love it!

It's not perfect (there are drip marks in some obnoxious places), but I'm really pleased with my first attempt at really refinishing furniture. We probably should put something on it to protect the paint job, but it was either a satin or semigloss- both of which are finishes they suggest for cabinetry, so we'll see.

Hopefully the room will all come together when we're done!