The Dresser

Here is a dresser that my Mother-in-Law gave us. It was the very first bedroom suite her and Jake's dad had when they were married, which I think is pretty cool. It is in great shape and is a well made piece of furniture. But, as you can see, it is not much to look at. So, I decided to give it a make over!

I started out by taking the hardware off and then lightly sanding it. I knew that I could not just paint this piece without sanding it with a high-powered sander or priming it, so I decided to go with primer. I had heard about this Kilz spray primer on a couple of blogs and decided to try it out. It worked so well! It was also super easy to apply. I just sprayed on a few coats and then sanded it down a bit after it was dry. The thing that I have learned with spray, though, is that it is hard to get it really even. The one thing about this particular primer is that it takes a lot to coat something. The dresser took 2 entire bottles.

Here is the dresser with the primer

Jake wanted to get all new hardware, but I did some research and found that the hardware we liked ran from $4-$12. This dresser requires 12 handles, so it would have cost us quite a bit to get all new hardware. I actually love the original handles and finally convinced Jake that I could make them look great. I bought a metallic silver spray paint and painted all of the handles.

After I primed the dresser, I used a flat black paint over the entire thing. Wow, it took forever, but it turned out so great!! I really like the way the flat black looks with the shiny silver handles. I also painted a mirror to go with it.

Here is the finished product!

Here are a few things I learned from this project:

-Good primer is a MUST

-The finish does make a difference. Flat has a completely different look than gloss, etc.

-Spray paint takes a lot less time than paint, but is less even.

-Polyurethane anything that is going to get a lot of use

Until next time,

J and M