
We love buying vintage furniture through online auctions. We have gotten some great deals this way! But when you buy from photographs only, there is both risk and reward. Our project this week was a bit of both! Below we tell you all about our adventure refinishing this Princeville dresser using Cottage Paint’s Fairy Tale.
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The before
We decided to bid on this piece because it had cute details and the pick up was very close to our house!

Below is the photo we saw online when we bid. There are two very important details about this piece that we couldn’t tell from the photos.

First, it smelled heavily of smoke. It’s always sad to see a beautiful piece that’s spent years soaking in nicotine. Luckily, this wasn’t our fist time dealing with this issue. You can read our tips and tricks to rid furniture of the smokey smell here.
Second, it has a marble top! Could you spot it in the pictures? We thought it was some type of cloth runner on top. Very cool surprise!
The process
Prep
After a good clean the smoke smell wasn’t diminished at all, so we resorted to covering every-last-inch with BIN shellac primer.
Pro tip: where a mask!
Because we had so much to cover we used our HomeRight sprayer. And, since the weather has gotten cold around here, we set up a spray tent in our garage.

Pro tip: don’t spray without some type of cover on the things around your work area! Paint particles fly everywhere.
Because we love to know the provenance of a piece, we tapped over the manufacturer’s marking so it would still be visible in the future.
Painting
Color inspiration can some from anywhere. October is breast cancer awareness month and we knew we wanted to do a pink piece. Cottage Paint makes the perfect soft pink called Fairy Tale.
Pink can be a tricky color to paint! Choose the wrong shade paired with the wrong lighting and you have a piece that is garish or useless outside of a nursery. Fairy Tale is a great color because it looks very light, almost white and neutral, in bright light. In low light Fairy Tale looks warmer and is calming and soothing.
We used Fairy Tale in Serenity Silk so we didn’t need a top coat. This is one of the many reasons we love mineral paint, which you can read about here.
The after
The hardware on this dresser was a lovely gold color so we only needed to give it a clean and reattach it. We often don’t paint out the mirror that’s meant to match a dresser because we prefer a less matchy look. However, the mirror on this piece was such an interesting shape we decided it really suited the piece and we finished it to match.





In the end this we think the details on this Princeville dresser and its new color, Cottage Paint’s Fairy Tale, and truly fit for a princess! What do you think of painting furniture pink? Yay or nay? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Do you happen to know what type of wood this is?!
Unfortunately, I could not really determine that.