A burst of colour...

Okay, so I've been carrying around this old maple secretary desk intermittently for thirty years or so. It was my daughter's as she was growing up. (She's now a married Mum to four boys...when did THAT happen!?) So, as with other pieces of furniture in my past, this one has been recycled through children and friends over the years, and it came back to me (in it's "still-functional-but-"dated"-condition") when my adult son relocated to Ontario.

I don't have a before pic, but it looked almost identical to this one. Nice little piece, but it wasn't fitting in with my brighter, cleaner, upcycling-in-progress life, right? (ha ha)

After a lovely coat of primer (Zinnser Bin Cover Stain...my FAVOURITE) I used my go-to colour...Martha Stewart Heavy Cream, morphed into knock-off chalk paint with calcium carbonate, and painted the inside with ASCP Arles...such a lovely soft gold. Painting the fronts of those cubbies with white was a major PAIN, but I liked the extra bit of definition that gave the inside.

Okay, done, but SOOOO boring, especially when it was closed.

So I switched out the hardware for cup drawer pulls, painted them with Rustoleum Rubbed Bronze...looking better...more up-to-date..."and THEN!!

AHA!! GOT IT!! I went back into my bookmarks and found this post over at Tracy's place...PERFECT little bit of OOMPH for this piece, I thought.

Tracy very kindly sent me a copy if the image she used for her lovely piece (THANKS Tracy!), but after another AHA moment, I decided to scan in one of my (many) peacock feathers, and used that as the image transfer base on the drop down front piece, then on one of the drawers...painted over the transfer for more definition, chipped, sanded, applied three coats of Polycrylic, and this is the result. Acetone image transfer in progress...spritzed warm water over, gently rubbed off the paper...

...painted over the image with several colours of acrylic paint...

...close-up...

...and here she sits, in my livingroom, with my yummy lichen green wall as a backdrop...

Ooohhh my, my daughter Erin will either love it or hate it (she thinks my "taste"has moved towards the "trashy"as I move toward my dotage (ha ha). If she LOVES it, I'll let her have it back! Hey hey HEY...edited to say...she liked it...she REALLY LIKED it! (ha ha)

Please oh brilliant ones, tell me what YOU think. Just be gentle 'eh?

Partying here and with these fine bloggers, and thanking them for all their dedicated linky party work.

Here are the scanned peacock feathers I used, if you'd like to play!




THANK YOU so much for visiting today...I'll visit YOU too if you leave a link.

"May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light.

May good luck pursue you each morning and night."

An Irish Blessing

THANK YOU to Amy and Emily and Courtney and Kelli and Dr Jaime for so generously featuring my desk at their linky parties...DO pop over to visit these blogs for some fabulous inspiration!