The Life and Times of a Frenchy Dresser

Boy do I have a treat for you today. :-) The long awaited reveal of the frenchy dresser that I affectionately dubbed "Franchute" (Fran - choo - tay). Meet Franchute.



Ok, first up, you need to hear how I acquired said dresser. Last year I was trolling Craigslist for a new coffee table. I knew I wanted something fancy looking, sturdy and substantial. I found a few potentials, including this one and emailed them all. I never heard back about this little frenchy dresser. Or so I thought. Over a week later, I got a call - are you still interested in this dresser? Am I interested? You betcha. So Lover drove me forty minutes out of town to get this little dresser that I had my heart set on. We hauled it home and I set it up in the place of the table that Lover made, and I loved it. And then we started using it. And this happened.



Rings! Spots! Water marks! EVERY single time we dropped a single drop of water on this table, it would leave a mark. Needless to say, it drove me bonkers in two seconds flat. Add to this problem the fact that I felt the table was a smidge too high, and bulky looking in the center of the room, and it wasn't long before the idea of making this our new coffee table was scrapped. Plus, call me sentimental, but I missed the table that Lover made me in our first year of marriage.



About the same time, we were finishing up the loveseat, and had gotten rid of the old behemoth one that took up half of the right side of the living room. And then fate smiled on me and I found a perfect match to the blue chair we already had, and I knew that I wanted to replace this



with the blue chairs and Franchute, once he had a makeover. So I hauled that guy down to the basement and started in.

The top was stained, and the bottom and drawers were painted. My plan was to simply refinish the top in a very deep dark stain, and then choose a fun color to repaint the bottom and drawers. So I started sanding.

And lo and behold, the wood that was under that horrible stain job was freaking AMAZING! It is seriously some of the most beautiful grain I've ever seen. :-)

I saw no reason to cover that up, so I did one quick coat of Dark Walnut from Minwax and let it dry.

See that awesome grain? My goodness. So pretty. Then I applied four coats of Wipe On Poly in a Satin finish. This is the same finish I used on our coffee table, and it has held up perfectly for almost five years with daily abuse (read no coasters, crayon drawings, etc) I finished this in January, and we've been using the dresser since then, and it looks perfect.

So then I had to decide on a paint color. I thought about blue or a light coffee color, but decide to break out of my safe zone and paint it a deep purplish red. I hemmed and hawed about two different color choices - Perfect Plum and Royal Garnet by Valspar for quite a while. I even put it on Facebook for a poll. Royal Garnet won overwhelmingly, which was great, because that was the one I wanted anyways. (Hey, it had a cooler name! :-) And I painted the base the next day. This is the pic you saw in February.

I ended up doing three coats on the base, and then wiping a quick coat of stain (again, the dark walnut) over the top. It deepened the color a bit, brought out all the details, and helped the paint relate to the stained top. Then I started on the drawers. Kill me now. My plan was to strip the paint out of the middle insets, stain them and then paint around them. This process took me four more months. :-)

After much work, sweat, and tears, here's how they ended up.

Lovely. But it took a while. The paint on those drawers was STUBBORN and I actually had to repeat the whole process twice. The first time the drawers looked disastrous. Now they look lovely. :-) I also stripped the paint off the little gold handles by boiling them in a pot of hot water with baking soda. Worked like a charm. Yay!

Ready to see the whole ensemble? Here's the before again to remind you:

And the lovely afters:

I love it. It has drama and va-va-voom. :-) It's incredibly functional, but still so pretty and sassy. And isn't that bowlful of peonies on top just to die for? All my peony plants bloomed this year, and they are gorgeous.

The ruffles! The tiny pink petals! The drama! :-) Ok, I am done. Oh, and isn't it freaky how well the new blue chair matches the one that came with the house? :-) I love when that happens. And when chairs are five dollars at garage sales. :-)

I am currently making some new art to go above the chairs and dresser, and it's coming out great. :-) I'll show you as soon as it's done. Or four months after. Whatever. :-) Have a great day!