Empire Chest of Drawers Makeover with Fusion’s Lichen

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Happy March Everbody!

March is my favorite month of the year! I love the start of spring, the week off of school, and it’s my birthday month 🙂

To go along with the start of spring, I picked an earthy color for this month’s online shop Color Focus . . .

Say hello to Lichen!

 

 

It’s a soft, earthy green with a hint of gray.  Lichen is subtle enough to work as a neutral, but saturated with enough color to also make a statement.

It’s one of the colors that doesn’t look so amazing in the jar (like Bedford), but once you get it onto a piece it’s amazing!

 

I snagged this beaten up empire chest of drawers awhile back and thought it would look perfect in Lichen.

 

 

Now let me say to the furniture purists out there who see the age of this piece along with that beautiful burled wood veneer, and cringe and the idea of it being covered in paint . . . There was no way to save the original finish of this chest!

The amount of veneer that had chipped off of those top drawers left them irreparable.

 

 

Even though the rest of the drawer fronts were in good shape, the only hope for these two was paint. And if I painted the top two drawers, it wouldn’t make sense, stylistically, to not paint the others.

But the good news is that the top was in good shape . . .

 

 

So I planned on saving that part instead.

The lesson here is that sometimes furniture pieces can’t be saved without paint, no matter how badly you want to preserve their originality!

In my mind, if I could save this piece from being completely painted by someone else, that would count as a win.

Here are my materials I used for the makeover:

• Simple Green Cleaner–wipe down grease and grime, then wipe off with damp cloth
• Wood Filler–to fill in some missing veneer spots on drawers
• Wood Glue–to glue down some veneer pieces still loosely attached
• Beeswax Distressing Block–rub along edges before basecoat to make distressing easy
• 1 pint Fusion Lichen
• Homestead House Espresso Furniture Wax
• Fusion Small Round Natural Bristle Brush–perfect for both painting and wax application
• Fusion Hemp Oil–to bring back the luster of the wood top

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After cleaning off with Simple Green, I very quickly rubbed some 220 grit sandpaper over the whole surface and then wiped off any sanding dust.  I did what I could to glue back down the chipping veneer on the top 2 drawers and tried to smooth off the chipped spots by adding some wood filler.  I knew those top two drawers were going to look far from perfect, but I’m ok with that.  Sometimes when working with furniture you have to accept the imperfections–this piece was still going to be stunning even with 2 damaged drawers!

Lichen had amazing coverage . . . one solid basecoat and then a second half-coat–mainly touching up in certain places.

Once I finished the painting, I thought the Lichen dried a little too cool-toned to be a good match for the warmth of the wood top I left stained.

Problem solved with a little bit of Espresso Wax!

 

 

Fusion doesn’t need a wax top coat to seal it since it’s an acrylic and not a chalk-type paint. But I’ve found a light coat of dark wax can be perfect for warming up the tone of a color just a touch, which is all I needed.  Plus the wax settled down into the grooves and curves of the piece well and helped add some more interest and depth.

 

Here it is all finished!

 

 

See how subtle the green color is?

 

 

 

And like I said, those top 2 drawers are far from perfect, but their dings and dents blend right in.  I did a good bit of distressing along the edges of the chest to help create that worn, aged feel.

 

 

You have to love the curves of empire style furniture!

 

 

A quick rub down with Fusion’s Hemp Oil took care of any scratches on that beautiful top and brought back the wood’s shine.

 

 

 

 

 

So there you have it!

Will you be giving Lichen a try?

If you missed January or February’s colors, you can see them below. Click on either photo to see the full post.

 

 

 

 

 

And as always, if you don’t have a local Fusion Mineral Paint Merchant you can shop the complete line of products in my online shop.

 

Thank you so much for joining me today!