Finally! Revamped and Organized Jewelry Box

Ahhhh.  I can't wait to share this project with you! It's been something I've wanted to do for years and I finally did it.  I revamped and organized my beautiful jewelry box.  What took so long was my indecision about what to do with the wood finish.  Here it is before:

Now, if you've read this blog for more than a hot minute, you know that I like white furniture.  Nothing is safe: if I have a piece of brown wood, I am painting it white ... or maybe a soft seaglass green.  So, my instinct has always been to paint the jewelry box white, too.  The only issue is it was a gift from my grandparents for my college graduation and is a really good, well-crafted, high quality piece from a family-owned furniture company in farm country Pennsylvania.  And while I know that the finish of the wood doesn't really matter, something in me just didn't like the idea of slapping white paint over that gorgeous wood. 

I bought some liming wax, which I've seen on a bunch of blogs I like.  The process seemed simple enough: use a wire brush on the finish and then add the wax, which would supposedly give a soft whitewash to the wood.  I gave it a try and ... fail.  The dark stain was still showing through and it just looked like it had some cloudy film on it.  I considered getting out wood stripper and taking off the finish, but given how intricate and small this piece is, it seemed like a ton of work, for an effect I wasn't even sure I wanted.  So I went back to my comfort zone.  White paint! Who is surprised?!?

I used a coat of oil based primer and three coats of Valspar's Cream Delight (which I used on the trim on my living room bookshelves).

Just like with any other piece of furniture that I refinish, after the final coat was dry, I added Polycrilic to protect the finish.  I let that sit for 24 hours before returning it to my room. I added new hardware that I found on Etsy at DaRosa Creations.   I love the way they look.

And just like that, the outside was done!  It went from this ...

to this!

Much better.  

And that's not all!  The inside of the jewelry box was a mess.  I generally knew where all my jewelry was, but it was all sort of haphazardly thrown into the different drawers.  I took some time to neaten up the mess.

The first thing I did was go through the drawers and make sure I really wanted everything in there.  Look at all of this:

I decided to add some drawer liners as well.  I had a massive amount of blue velvet in my fabric stash, and this seemed like a great way to put it to use.  I wrapped the velvet around pieces of foam board that I picked up from Target, which I cut to fit the size of the drawers.  The drawers went from jumbled messes to this!

Yay!  I'm thrilled with this project and so so happy that it's finally done.  Now I'm inspired and ready to do paint more furniture - the playroom pieces (which have been on the to do list since January) and the dining room table top.  The legs will go white, but the top is going to get stripped of its cherry wood finish and then limed.  There's always a project waiting in the wings.  

See you swoon,