Hooked on Mid Century Modern Furniture Painting

Sometimes I feel alone in my passion for painting beat up mid century modern dressers.

I’m always inspecting what other painters are doing.  Of course, we do what sells.  If a piece is white or gray, has some distressing, knob bling, maybe a chic stencil, and some dark wax antiquing effect, it sells fast.  I really like that shabby chic style too but, my tendency is toward these mid century pieces that I had in my bedroom growing up.

There is a way to make shabby chic and mid century modern work together.

Using Neutral Color and Fancy Knobs

I chose neutral color to help blend shabby chic style with Mid Century Modern.  The body is Sherwin William Samovar Silver.  I love it because it can fit into gray category or it can switch to looking blue depending on the room it’s placed.  Otherwise, MCM colors are bright like orange, red, and mint. 

Modern to me invites geometric shapes so I featured the top drawer with metallic silver diamonds and the glass knobs.  That part is not shabby chic!  Yeah I should have thought ahead to make the points line up with the knob wholes. I used math to make the shapes equivalent without considering  where the holes were placed. 

Choosing the knobs is another way of blending shabby chic into an MCM makeover.  Glass and mercury knobs seem to be popular in shabby chic styling now.  It works for this piece!

The white base paint on the top drawer is top coated before applying the silver diamonds.  I wasn’t happy with the way the silver turned out so I took a sanding block to it just for grins. It took on a cool affect of spreading some of the silver color to the peaks of the base brush strokes.

The best part of buying an old mid century modern cast away is the original drawer handles.  Check out these sleek ones.  They have been sprayed with silver metallic paint.  They remind me of the Jetson’s.