Zibra Paint Brush Win and a Dresser Make-Over

Woo-hoo!   A couple of weeks ago I entered a give-away for a Zibra Paint Brush gift pack and I won!  I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to win these.  I am an avid reader of the Prodigal Pieces  blog and Larissa uses their brushes all the time so I have been wanting to try them.  Check out the great gift box I received....

It contained 5 different brushes....

• square brush
• triangle brush
• round brush
• palm pro brush
• chiseled edge brush

Each brush has a specific use.  They are very nicely made and the bristles are amazing - super dense and very soft.

Here's the piece we decided to tackle - a vintage dresser that we got for free!  The dresser is very old, dating to early 1900's. 

 There is a stamp on the back that says 1905 but I'm not sure if that's a model number or the year.  However, the mirror that came with the dresser has a stamp on it that says February of 1928, so I can safely date the dresser to the late 1920's, which is pretty cool in itself.  The mid-60's year old woman who gave me the dresser   whose garbage I picked it out of, told me it had belonged to her grandmother.

The veneer on the bottom and on both dresser sides was horribly chipped.  We soaked the bottom trim with some towels and ripped off the veneer, but the sides were so bad that my husband just went and got some new wood, cut it to size and attached it with liquid nail.  We weighted it down, let it sit overnight and we were good to go.

At this point we loaded the dresser into the truck and headed to our lake house in Kentucky.  I just opened a booth at an antique mall and this dresser was slated to be one of our first items when we moved in so we decided to finish it in Kentucky.

Once we were at the lake and took a really good look at the top of the dresser, we realized that the veneer on the top was going to have to go.  First I tried staining it just to see how it would look and I hated it, so we pulled out some towels, wet them and let them sit on the veneer overnight.  When we tried peeling off the veneer, it came off in small pieces and after much soaking, waiting and chipping I was getting aggravated.  

So I pulled out my iron and we started steaming the wet towels - wow!!  That worked fantastically and the veneer started peeling off like butter...  

We had not one, but 2 layers of veneer removed in about 10 minutes.  I won't be able to use this iron for clothes anymore, but then, who wants to iron clothes anyway???

Louie gave everything a good sanding and then I stained the drawers both inside and out.  

Finally, we were able to start painting.    Even Louie, who usually doesn't like to paint, said he didn't mind it using these brushes.  The round brush works like a dream on spindles.  I could paint spindles all day!

And the palm brush is nothing short of amazing.  I should have had Louie take a picture of me using it.  My hands are small and using a regular brush is usually uncomfortable.  But the handle of this brush is wide and fits perfectly in the hand - what a huge difference!  Plus, the bristles cut in nicely for any indentations and corners.  Loved it!

Louie cleaned and polished the original hardware and then re-installed it...

We loaded it up and took it over to the antique mall...

Check out the mirror - it has these beautiful etched leaves.  Isn't that fantastic?  I about flipped when I first saw that mirror.

Here's the finished product - all spiffed up and ready for somebody to give it a new home.  Available at Antiques Et Cetera in Benton, Ky.

Thank you Zibra Paint for the fantastic paint brushes.  They are definitely keepers!  I can't wait to try out the rest of the brushes in the box.  Visit their website here.

And be sure to visit their FB page.  They have all kinds of inspirational furniture re-do's as well as occasional brush give-away contests.