This post will contain WAY more information than most of you want to know, so feel free to stop here if you are happy to have seen the before and after pictures in my Dresser Reveal post J
I tried to take a few extra pictures of the process so- 1. I could remember exactly what I did, and 2. A few people asked that I would post the various stages. I’ve been thinking about this post off and on for a while, and I was (justifiably) concerned it would be long, thus it turned into a daunting time commitment (in my mind.) I also decided to break it up into two posts because I wrote so much detail. So, here goes…
{The Dresser Back-story}
This 5 foot+ dresser came into my life when I married my beloved Trace. His mom had given it to him, and no one seems to remember how long it had been in the family (my guess- a very loooong time). If you ever read this- sorry Mama Jones, but I NEVER liked it! I thought it looked dated, old fashioned and beat up, plus it was HUGE. I was thankful that we didn’t have to buy a dresser for Trace, and I tried to remind myself of that whenever I thought about how much I disliked the look of it J Most all of the furniture in our house was given to us so we have lots of styles, wood grains, and colors to work with, but this was one of my less favorites. I’m not a great decorator (that talent all went to my sister Nickee) but over the past few months I’ve become bolder with trying new things thanks to many of the blogs that I frequent. All that to say- I’d had it with the dresser being beat up and ugly and decided it needed a serious change! Nevermind that we live in Texas and it was July- I had waited long enough to begin this project and nothing was going to hold me back…
{The Process Begins}
BEFORE
Sorry for the blurry pics- I took them with my iPod!
Literally every step felt like a project in and of itself. First was removing the hardware and I discovered that there were 17 pieces, and more than 40 screws on the thing! I think I ended up using 3 different screwdrivers due to the varying size and shapes of the screws.
Next, I cleaned the inside of the dresser and employed the vacuum cleaner for help. After that we carried the dresser and drawers out the garage- their new home for the next two weeks. I used a TSP cleaner that I purchased at Lowe’s to thoroughly clean the wood in order to remove year’s worth of dirt and grime. Since the cleaner was pretty heavy duty I wore chemical blocking gloves. I’d also bought disposable masks to wear, but I couldn’t breathe very well so I ditched them. I didn’t take a picture of the many rags it took to do the job, but there were several!
{Corny Design Removal}
Two of the drawers and the door in the middle-front had a flowery design that I decided just had to go! I determined to use wood putty to fill the design and make the drawers and door appear “flat”. I knew that I’d have to sand it when the putty dried and due to the wonder that is Facebook I was able to borrow a sander from a friend. At first the wood puttying was going great so I decided that it should be a breeze to fill in the design border on the door front as well. Famous last words…or thoughts in this case. I quickly realized I had bit off more than I could chew if I wanted a straight and even door surface (who wants a lumpy and uneven surface?) More on that later…
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| Blurry "before" shot of the drawer design |
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| In process of filling in design with wood putty |
{Priming}
I decided that I did not need to sand since I would be painting the dresser black, but a good primer would be a must. When choosing a primer I did what many self-respecting, novice DIY’ers would do and checked out Young House Love to find out what John and Sherry recommend. Since they said to go with an oil-based primer (that it’s perfectly fine to use with a latex paint) that’s what I bought! This was my first time using oil-based anything and I was a little nervous about the clean up, but fortunately I was using sponge brushes so I was careful and just threw away what I used and didn’t need to buy any paint thinner or mineral spirits to clean up. One coat did the trick and since I knew I’d have lots left over and wanted to use it on future projects I decided to leave it white, but wished I could have used a tinted primer. Oh well!
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| Dresser with primer |
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