Upcycled chest via D.Lawless Hardware

Sometimes I come across a great piece of furniture that just doesn’t seem to sell.  The piece has great lines and is well made.  I paint it and ready it for sale.  But simply no go…and there it sits!  A beautiful upcycled chest!  Sometimes the piece is just waiting for the right person.  Sometimes it just needs a little more somethin somethin.  Like this piece:

Cute right?  All it needs is some darling knobs and it’s ready to go!  Right?  I thought so but the vision is not so easy for everyone.  And as a result, this baby is just sitting here sad and forlorn and lonely!

New Hardware

Well, guess who is sponsoring this month’ Fab Furniture Flippin’ Contest??!!  D.Lawless Hardware!  This wonderful supplier has an endless supply of hardware for furniture of every kind.  I knew that they specialize in knobs, pulls and hinges but they carry other incredible staples such as drawer slides, appliques, catches, cabinet lights, this list goes on and on and on! So for simplicity’s sake just check them out HERE!  They even have those hard to find sizes for antique furniture!

Each month, the Fab Furniture Flippin’ Contest challenges  a group of bloggers to flip a piece of furniture using a product from one of their fabulous sponsors.  This month’s theme is Class It Up!  Which is exactly the theme needed for my little upcycled chest of drawers!   In exchange for my participation in this contest, I received free hardware of my choice to use on my selected furniture piece.  Here are the items I ordered:

My first choice was White Cloisonne Dynasty:

My second choice was Frosted Plum Flower:

My third choice was Crystal Rose Bud Flower:

Guess what??!!  They sent me all of the above!  How incredible is that?

Making a choice for my Upcycled Chest

As usual, I had a basic idea of how I wanted to CLASS UP this upcycled chest, but it wasn’t until the knobs arrived that my game plan actually came together.  My original plan was to use the Cloisonne knobs.  But once I laid eyes on the Frosted Plum knobs, I was torn between the two choices.  And those Rose Bud knobs are such a stunning neutral!  What’s a girl to do?  Well, I basically took a poll.

I asked every customer who came into the store for several days which one they liked!  And the winner by unanimous vote is:

Finishing Touches

I selected a small stencil from my work area to use on each drawer front around each knob.  I’m not a careful stenciler so the finished stencil work was not crisp.

I need to master this.  But in the meantime, I grabbed a lime green paint pen and hand painted some detail around the stencil.  This added a little more class to the stencil.

And here is one knob installed.

I think the whimsy around the stencil really adds some character to the drawers!

And here are all of the knobs installed:

Adding some height

I decided that these gorgeous knobs could use a little extra support in classing up this chest.  So I added some legs that I had laying around and painted them white.  I had to reinforce the bottom of the chest since it didn’t have anyplace to attach the legs.  I simply cut 4 even pieces of 2x4s.  I attached these to each corner of the bottom underside of the chest.  I drilled holes in the 2x4s.  I used some glue for reinforcement and screwed the legs into the 2x4s.  Voila…baby has cute legs now!

Next I wanted the top to pop so I sanded off most of the teal to expose the wood.  I believe the top is maple, a lighter wood.  I decided to use a darker stain and finish it off with some white wax.

And, drumroll…here she is ALL CLASSED UP:

Contest Host

This month’s host for the Fab Furniture Flippin’ Contest is Colleen from 58 Water Street. Head over to her blog to see the amazing piece that she refinished and classed up using D.Lawless hardware.  At the end of her post, be sure to click through to see all of this month’s furniture flips featuring a seemingly endless array of D.Lawless hardware!  You will be amazed at the transformations!

If you are a blogger who would be interested in participating in future contests, please send an email to info@fabfurnitureflippincontest.com.