Dresser Makeover

When I was in 18 I refinished my first piece of furniture. It was an older dresser. I sanded it down and stained it. Later on, I refinished our dinning room table and do lots of other Do-Over Jobs.  However I don't have any pictures. When I saw this blog post, I had to share because it is really so easy Before you throw out that old piece of furniture, give it a second look. Maybe a coat of paint and a few new handles would be just what it needs. This is from livelovediy. - Rejoicing in the Present


This dresser ended up being one of my easiest makeovers ever because I've learned a few new tricks since my last makeover.
Here's what the dresser looks like today, after just a little bit of work.

But let's back up just a little bit.
To where it all began.
Remember this summer when I carted home a trailer full of old furniture?


Well, I painted the tall dresser right away and it ended up here. Then, I kinda forgot about the other one, and didn't even remember it existed until I caught Jesse sawing pieces of wood on top of it in the spider garage. Remember this?So, this past weekend I finally had Jesse haul it upstairs so that I could paint it. This thing was coated in years of dust and grime and spiders, so it took me a good twenty minutes just to give it a sponge bath. So, this is what it looked like after I cleaned it...still not good.

Somehow one of the handles disappeared in the frenzy. It's still a mystery.After it was clean, I removed the drawers from the frame and removed all of the hardware off the fronts of the drawers.Then, I used 3M Wood Filler to fill all of the holes and scratches so that the paint would apply evenly.I use the white paintable kind, which worked great with my light colored paint.
I applied the wood filler wherever there were holes and scratches.

After the wood filler was dry, I used some fine grit sand paper from 3M Advanced Abrasives to sand away the excess and make it even with the surface of the wood. This makes it look as good as new once it's painted.

Once I finished sanding down the wood filler, I lightly scuffed up the entire surface area with some super fine grit sandpaper and then wiped down all the surfaces again, making sure they were free from dust.
And when I say 'lightly scuff', I mean I spend less than two minutes on it.

Next, I primed the dresser. Primer makes the paint adhere without having to sand down the wood like a crazy person. Look for a primer that says 'adhesion' on it, like the one I used here.

For both primer and paint, I used an angled paintbrush and a mini foam roller, brushing the paint on with the paintbrush and smoothing it out with the roller if needed.

I applied just one coat of primer. You can apply more if the stain of your wood is bleeding through, but I rarely need to.

Once the primer was dry, it was time to paint. I've tried all sorts of paints, and painted over 10 pieces of furniture, but this time I decided to try something new.


I used a waterbased acrylic alkyd enamel (called the Pro Classic if you get it from Sherwin Williams). It's water based so it cleans up easily with water, but the enamel formula gives it a harder finish like an oil based paint. It applies so smoothly that I didn't need to use my beloved Floetrol, and barely even needed my foam roller. Plus, I used a semi-gloss finish and didn't even have to use a pesky topcoat because it dried so hard and durable. Seriously, it was crazy how great this paint was.

And it was so thick that I barely even needed a second coat.

The paint color I chose was Sedate Gray. It has green undertones, and can sometimes even look blue in the right light.

And the gray pairs so well with my gold and silver accents, like that mirror that I got at my last thrift store shopping trip (details about that adventure here).
I'm pretty sure that picture of me and Jesse is sideways, but whatev, A for effort.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to use this dresser for yet. I might use it as a buffet in our dining room (if it fits after we get a table and chairs back in there...one day). Or I might use it underneath our TV in the living room.
I'm so sick of youknowwho.
For now, it's just in the empty dining room, all dressed up with nowhere to go.
We've all been there, girl.

And since I lost that piece of hardware somewhere deep in the pits of the spider garage, I replaced ALL of the hardware with some fabulous antique restoration hardware from my favorite place. I used a little gold lion pull on the center drawer...

and some sassy Victorian bail pulls on the rest of the drawers

And it all just came together!

FOR PICTURES OF HER PROJECT GO TO livelovediy