Painted Dresser

Back in the day, you know, before Aedan came around, I actually used to blog about crafts and DIY projects. For the past 17 months, I haven’t done too many projects. Shocking, I know.

BUT, this weekend I tackled a project and I thought I would share the details.

Last year, after my grandfather passed away, my grandmother moved to an independent living community. In doing so, she needed to get rid of a few pieces of furniture. One of them was the dresser she and my grandfather bought together in the 1950s.

I have been wanting to get a new dresser for Aedan because I hate the one that came with his crib. We have been pretty happy with the crib, but the dresser is awful. The drawers fall apart all the time and it is just cheaply made.. We decided we would get him a new dresser when we move him to a big boy bed. But since my grandparent’s dresser became available I jumped at the chance to have it.

Growing up, I had my great grandparent’s bedroom furniture in my room and now Aedan gets to have his great grandparent’s furniture in his room, love it!

I decided I wanted to paint the dresser – hence the project post. Here is the dresser before.

Well, not exactly before, since I had already removed all the hardware and then remembered to take a picture, but you get the idea.

I love that it has so many drawers! I haven’t decided how I am going to organize it, but I will do a post on that soon.

Last Friday Aedan and I made a trip to Home Depot.

What? Doesn’t everyone wear oversized sunglasses inside Home Depot? Seriously, he wore these the entire time we were in the store. Clearly his shirt says it all. :)

I picked up some tinted primer (a must have), some black paint, foam brushes and a roller. Then we stopped to look at the hardware selection. Here is the drawer handles that came on the dresser…

In this picture they look black, but they are not. I think maybe they used to be a gold, but they are pretty weathered now. I thought it would be easy to pick out some new ones.

I was wrong (and this is quickly becoming the longest post ever!).

Apparently now most drawer/cabinet handles are either 3 inches or 5 inches long. Guess what mine are…4.5 inches. Lame. I haven’t decided if I am going to shop around and find something that fits or if I should just spray paint the ones I have…

Anyway, back to the project. So I started by priming.

Then I applied 3 coats of black. I totally could have gotten away with 2 coats, but I painted the second coat at night (you know, when it was only 99 degrees outside) under poor garage lighting so I missed a few spots.

 

Oh and here is a painting tip that I love. When you know you are going to have to paint multiple coats and hate washing brushes, just put them in a plastic bag and stick them in the refrigerator.

I am going to let everything dry for a full 48 hours, which is so hard for me. I haven’t decided if I want to leave it straight black or distress it and stain over it, but hopefully I will have some after pictures soon (which I will take with my nice camera and not my iphone). :)

Oh and I did sand it down before and after the priming stage to get it nice a smooth. while I am not going to paint the inside of the drawers, I am thinking of putting some fun paper in the bottom of them like this.

Have you ever painted furniture? Any tips? Any advice on where to find a large selection of drawer handles?

-Lauren-