St Agnes Bay inspired Chest of Drawers
You may recall in an earlier post that I said we were in the process of slowly refurbishing our lovely but rather tired Cornish barn conversion.
This time round we’ve decided to pace ourselves rather than rush in all paint brushes blazing. My approach to design has mellowed a lot as I’ve moved through life and I’ve become a great believer in living in a space for a while first in order to add a little time and perspective on your refurbishment project. What do they say, ‘marry in haste, repent at leisure’.
I think this old adage counts also when you move into a new home too. It’s almost as if you need to get a feel for how your house breathes. How her heart beats. Hence my more relaxed, very ‘Cornish’ approach to tackling our home.
Part of home project has involved refurbishing and renovating pieces of furniture as we go and I stumbled across an old chest of drawers the other week, that we’d placed in storage for safe keeping because we hadn’t yet decided where we wanted it to go.
It’s a rather sweet chest of drawers that needed a little ‘je ne sais quoi’ in order to bring it back to life so I kicked off that process by prepping the surfaces and painted it in a lovely soft French grey chalk paint.
Not satisfied that this was enough; and inspired by a recent coastal walk at St Agnes bay, I decided to dust down some of my stencils and add a lovely pattern across her frontage in French Gris, to make her a little more interesting.
There is most definitely a knack to stencilling furniture, which I invariably need to remind myself of every time I decide to commit to a project.
Add too much paint to the stencil and it will bleed underneath and turn into a smudgy mess. Not enough paint, and the stencil will appear faint and you may miss out key bits of the design.
Time, patience and a very steady hand is also pretty essential needless to say. Rush your work and you will come to regret it, or worse, give up!
A number of my customers often ask for some hints and tips on stencilling, so I have decided that I will put together a bit of a step-by-step guide on adding ornate stencil work to furniture, along with some pictures, when I next find a piece that I think might benefit.
I didn’t consider, when renovating this piece, exactly where in the house I wanted it to end up and it wasn’t until I finished and measured the chest, that I realised it wasn’t quite the right size for our bedrooms. As a result, I’ve decided to add it to my online store so someone else might enjoy it. Please say hello to the St Agnes Bay inspired Chest of Drawers.
I have lots of beautiful water colours of Cornwall throughout my home, but couldn't find one of the lovely St Agnes Bay to include in the photoshoot, so had to make do with this one of beautiful St Michael’s Mount instead.
As always, please feel free to let me know what you think. I appreciate not everyone likes stencil or artwork added to their furniture, but sometimes, I think it really helps to make a piece a bit unique.
There is so much run-of-the-mill furniture available on the high-street. Why not introduce something a little different into your home. A bespoke on-off that adds interest and a little mystery.
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