This week’s before and after project is a reader submission from Leslie over at City Girl Arts. Leslie is formerly of the Falls Church, Arlington area and now lives in St. Petersburg, Florida with her family. Leslie loves to find old furniture, redesign it and blog about it over on her blog.

Today she is sharing a vintage credenza that she transformed into a colorful modern piece. Take it away, Leslie!

My favorite adjectives in decorating happen to be: colorful, bright, and gilded. I have been noticing a lot of Chinoiserie style pieces popping up on the design sites and blogs I read. These pieces tend to fit the adjectives I prefer, so I was excited to paint this latest piece with color, brightness and gold! I love painting in abstract, so I did that on the panel insets, then trimmed it all in gold. I took this well-built, plain brown cabinet and painted it into a colorful, artistic statement.

Here is the before picture of the credenza.

I started with using General Finishes Corinth Blue Milk Paint, so from that the Chinoiserie style credenza was born. Of course, I had to adorn it with something unique, like hand-painted abstract panels, gilded accents, and new, polished brass hardware. So, now I have this:

For the abstract panels, I used deep hot pink (looks red), mint, green, light blue, and pink. The legs and borders are gold oil paint. I think the piece now has a lot of personality! It even has a finished paneled and painted back so that it would not have to be used against a wall.

Thank you for sharing Leslie! To see more of her projects, head over to her blog here and her Facebook page here.

To purchase DIY supplies like paint and brushes, visit our online shop here.

Submit before and after photos of your projects here!