Before and After PLUS Tutorial : Bombe style Chest of Drawers in Modern Masters Metallics

When the client approached me with her ideas for a metallic stripe on this super classic piece, it was the polar opposite of what I had anticipated. I was thinking of maybe doing Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Louis Blue or Paris Grey, with some Old White accents on the carved side details and feet, light distressing... So we did a lot of searching online to see examples that might help me to realize the vision she had her heart set on! Here's the enormous complete transformation!

Originally the vision was for a more subtle stripe, so we mocked up some sample boards with Annie Sloan Paloma blended with a few metallic colors and thought that would serve as the base, with the pure metallic color on top. However, the client really gravitated toward seeing more of the metallic luster, so we ended up electing to put Warm Silver and Pewter next to one another. Read on to see the rest of the tutorial!


 Here is the chest as it was Before. The previous owners must have used incense since there was a little bit of a patchouli scent in the velvet drawer linings, even though the drawers were perfectly clean. We left the drawers open for a while, but the scent did not dissipate. So, we took coffee grounds and set them in open containers in each drawer for a week or so, and they absorbed/neutralized the scent!

I started with a blend of Paloma and Modern Masters Warm Silver as our base coat. I used Warm Silver above that on the sides and drawers in keeping with the "subtle stripe" idea. However, I was seeing a lot of variation in the color that I thought would not look ideal next to the bold stripes we were going to put on, so I ended up applying three coats of the Warm Silver to these areas.

Next, I added Pewter for the carved side details, bottom trim, and feet. You can see both the more saturated Warm Silver color, and the bold contrast with the Pewter paint.

The stripes were by far the most intimidating part of the process! I measured the top and divided it by the number of sections we wanted in order to find out the width of each section, then placed small pencil marks there. The key step here was remembering that the warm silver would have to be in the center section, so I needed to place the painter's tape *inside* of those pencil marks there, and *outside* of the pencil mark in the first and fifth (outer) sections. So even though these stripes look unbalanced here, it's because the gold sections will extend all the way through the area demarcated by the tape.

I also took a picture and utilized at it as a second view, and slightly adjusted the bottom of the third piece of tape. I find that things often look just a little bit different through the camera lens than they do when I'm staring directly at the piece of furniture!

Here's the final piece! I sealed it with a gloss finish so that it maintained that beautiful shine.

This has such a modern flair now, a beautiful twist on a classic shape! I am so honored to be trusted by my clients to work with new and bold shapes and colors. Thank you for the opportunity to learn something new!