Dresser Makeover

All of the dressers in our house have been inherited.   I love that fact, it creates a fun history (I have my dresser from when I was a baby as well as several from when Elliott was young) but it also means making a set is difficult.

Earlier in the spring I had randomly spotted a match to one of our dressers in Elliott’s Grandma Jerry’s garage when we were having a Sunday family dinner at her house.  SCORE!  Although the dressers themselves aren’t anything fabulous, I loved that the possibility of having a set in our master bedroom was there.  I asked Grandma if I could have it and she generously agreed.

The pair is not real wood but had a dark fake wood look, some of which had water damage and was starting to bubble and discolor.  I wanted to lighten them up and I had a quart of beautiful gray Martha Stewart paint laying around (picked up free at the recycling center at the dump, oh yeah!).  I didn’t really care about the bubbling and didn’t bother sanding anything.  I did however pick up some Kilz primer at Lowes and had them tint it gray.   (Did you know they can tint primer any color you want?  Genius!)

In July, while the three older girls were at Vacation Bible School all week, I tackled the multi-day project.  I layed everything out and spent the week priming and putting on a couple coats of my free paint.  I even cleaned up the metal accents and handles by using oven cleaner overnight:

It really took off quite a bit of the grime and years of build up, giving a shinier color.

TA-DA!

I wish I had a good “before and after picture”, but I am the world’s worst “before” picture-getter.  I never remember until halfway through!  Trust me when I say I love the results.

Here they are in place in our bedroom:

 
I love that we have a matching set now. 

It just feels more put together.  I would love to put some sort of solid top along both pieces to create one unified place for spare change, clean (and dirty) clothes, and all the other little bits that collect there.  Maybe change out the hardware (though that’s not a high priority).  And spray painting the mirror is also on the list.  Now if I could just settle on a color….