{Update: 3-29-12 For the first time ever, I’m posting this re-do in a link party hosted by Thrifty Decor Chick. I’ve been addicted to her site ever since I found it a few months back!}

I’ve been waiting for weeks to type that title! Can’t believe the dresser is actually finished. I keep walking by the door of our guest room and peeking at it. Here’s the evidence.

Before:

After:Pretty cool, right? I’m loving it! It’s by no means perfect, but I’m very happy with the way it turned out.

Painting this dresser has been on my mental to-do list for years, but I honestly wasn’t sure if I would ever actually have the courage to do it. Stephen bought this dresser (back in his grad school days) at a thrift store for something like $20. It’s nothing special–the top is warped, the drawers don’t slide in and out easily, the back is cracked–but it has simple, clean lines, and it seemed like a good first “furniture make-over” project to me. I thought I’d better do it while the weather is still nice.

I borrowed an orbital sander from a friend and got to work. Turns out, sanding was the easiest part of the process. I fell in love with the sander from drawer one, and I’m thinking I’ll need to buy one of my own sometime. The first hurdle of the project was what to do about the laminate top. After being pointed in the right direction, we used Zinsser’s B-I-N primer that sticks to any surface, and it worked beautifully.

Next, I chose to spray paint the entire thing black. Looking back, spray painting is harder than I thought. I had to do three coats to get it evenly painted, and you could still see my spray marks a bit.

We moved the dresser from the back patio to the garage for the polyurethane step. The garage was a little less dusty. I used a paint brush to apply the polyurethane, so of course it left some brush marks, but I made sure to do long, even strokes. I don’t mind a little bit of the hand-painted touch.

Since the dresser is so dated, we couldn’t find any hardware at our local stores that was the correct size. Instead of custom ordering something, I spray painted the original hardware silver. I’m loving the contrast of the silver drawer handles against the black dresser!

Now our guest room is finally black & white with pops of green. Still have some other things I’d like to do in here, but we’re making progress!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1203

..02000000000.3.333333333333333…00..0

0.0.0.