An Ugly Duckling

Today, I have been a busy girl. Before I was taken poorly, I started a project which I had had in my mind for an age and a half.....and my mind goes back a way :)
In the mists of time, when I was still working, a grateful patient gave me a demi -lune table ( half moon ) just because I had said, in a conversation, that I would like one. He had been an antiques dealer by trade and now and again he had come across something which wasn't antique but he'd had to take it anyway as part of a job lot.
This was how he acquired my table.

And so he gave it to me at a later date.

It has been sitting in my attic for ten years.
And for longer than ten years I have been hankering after a small dressing table.
So when I went up into the loft the other week and saw this little table, which is a reproduction, mahogany in base wood with a plastic like veneer I thought that I'd have a go at turning this rather unprepossessing piece of furniture into something a little more fanciable.

This is actually a photo of a rather nice table but believe me mine was no where near as pretty as this. Dark mahogany, the drawer didn't fit, it was a bit bashed, and it looked cheap so it got a coat of primer.

Years ago when I had been living in Sweden for a while, I came home with a longing for some of the beautiful French inspired Gustavian furniture I'd seen in the castles and stately homes I'd visited. If you want to know more about Gustavian furniture...go HERE. There was no way I could afford any of the real thing but being a handy sort of girl and having an equally handy husband, we decided one weekend ( as you do ) to build our own mirror in the Swedish style.
I had for years, when no one else wanted them, been collecting rather old and battered gilt frames, some of them 18th century. Many of them adorn my home today either rebuilt and re-gilded or like this frame, remade.

The top of the mirror was made of three layers of mdf, each cut out so that it appeared as if the decoration was etched in to the wood.
Then some pre-cut pieces which I got from a shop which sold everything you can think of to do with the reproduction home, from Tudor to Edwardian, Artisan to Art Deco, were glued into place on top. The whole thing was then painted and scumble glazed with light blue. The detail was picked out in gilt creme and the frame below it ( which is separate ) was treated in the same way. Et voila...a French inspired Gustavian mirror. We also made a matching pelmet for the bedroom in the same way.

A sweet little chair which had wormed its way into the boot of our car when we were on holiday in Sussex one year, was given the paint and gilt makeover too. It was such a pretty shape and very bashed and unloved. It's now our bedroom chair.

All I needed to complete the look was a dressing table.

And that was the easiest bit.

So today, I finished it, I did the gilding. You might say it was the icing on the cake, the gilding of the lily. An ugly duckling has been turned into a lovely swan. I'm very pleased.
Oh...and the connection to flowers? Well there are some rather pretty wooden ones on the mirror, pelmet and the chair. I might add a couple to the dressing table...just for a match.

( I know that 'brown' furniture is not a la mode but please do not paint antique pieces. The veneers will be ruined if you paint them with modern paint. Paint rubbish like I have. Antiques are too precious to ruin. Thanks. )