Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Bringing a little Ombre into my life


OK so you may or may not have heard of the Ombre trend that is sweeping the fashion and design world. Basically the word Ombre means - having colors or tones that shade into each other. You have seen this effect in hair and it can go from using natural hair colors like blond to brunette or getting crazy and adding color like red or blue to your locks. For those of you that are fans of the show The Voice (me! me!) you may have noticed Christina Aguilara with some color at the end of her locks in recent episodes.

Photo Source
But this isn't a blog about hair or fashion now is it?! So why am I talking about this? Well - this can be translated into furniture - of course!! Check out these awesome inspiration photos of make-overs using the Ombre look. What a cool idea to paint your exposed radiator in shades of your favorite colors!
via OppsRedone
via Natty by Design
via Frou Frougal
via Cool Cribs
OK so I have had this unpainted dresser for many years I snagged it at The Christmas Tree Shop (an awesome store if you are lucky to have one near by you should check it out). I have taken it to many apartments and moved it around a thousand and fifty times. Here is a rather bad picture of one spot I had it in at one time.


Recently it has resided inside my closet for storage and has been hidden away for the most part. It has remained unpainted as I could never decide what color to paint it! THEN the painting bug hit me and I scored a can of this beauifulness ....
Benjamin Moore - Gypsy Rose

AND well you can just imagine what happened next....



I loved the pink so much I used it as the base of the main dresser and then I did a little mixology for the drawers. I didn't have to prime this piece because it was in a natural wood state. But if you wanted to paint over a finished piece you would need to prime it first. I sanded this one a little bit by hand before I painted it to help the paint stick. But again if you are using a piece that has a finish on it I would recommend more sanding. I used some paint samples of very light pinks that I had on hand, I had purchased when trying to decide my wall color. You can buy these paint samples wherever they sell paint and they are usually about $3 each. I used those and a little white acrylic craft paint for mixing with the new pink paint. I kept the colors I created in small containers with enough paint to do several coats on each drawer. SO I had the darkest and the lightest colors right off the bat - the ones in the middle did get a little tricky. At one point I wondered how I could possible have another shade but some adding of white and pink here and there just seemed to make it happen! Here is the final look - what do you think?

My sidekick Jules left me on my own to paint this one but he was there to check things out in the end.

SO this is not the final resting place for this beauty in my room but simply staged here for your viewing pleasure. You will have to stay tuned for a future post to see what I have in store for this bad boy! I am going to leave you with a before and after side shot and maybe this can inspire you to look around your home and see where you can bring a little Ombre into your life!





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