All Dressered Up

Hello Friends!  I'd like to say that I've gotten a lot of things done today since I've been off work.  I've been busy all day long, but it sure doesn't seem like I've got much to show for it.  I went to work/fluff my booth at Smith's this morning and had lunch with a friend.  I've been working on completing some tire covers for our trailer and the kid's table for our house, but neither are completed yet.

It's a rainy, dreary day here, so Gauge and I aren't super motivated to get our outside projects done, so instead our day has been mostly indoor projects, some cuddling, laundry, housework, and the list goes on.

Today I'm sharing with you a dresser make-over that I recently completed.  I bought this dresser from one of my client's daughters.  She had bought it to fix up herself and resale, but just had too many other things going on and was ready to clear out some room in the garage.  Enter a happy me.  Dresser?  Yes, please.  They are my favorite pieces to refinish.  Here's what it started out like:

 And, here's what it ended up looking like:

To get started, I removed all the hardware and drawers and got to sanding.  I sanded the top down to bare wood and gave a good overall sanding to the rest of it.

Next up, I primed everything except for the top.  For me one fairly thin coat of (good) primer generally does the trick.  This dresser had one small area that had a little bit of bleed through, so I put a very light extra coat on that one spot.

  

After priming, I used two coats of paint (Cabinet Coat Paint from Benjamin Moore) and stained the top with Dark Walnut.

Next up was distressing.  For this piece, I did all of the distressing with my hand sander.  I generally hit edges and corners primarily during this process.

This piece was missing some hardware when I started, but I had enough to use on all of the drawers except for the top one.  For the top I ended up using some knobs I had on hand that were a shiny gold color.  I spray painted all of the hardware with my trusty oil-rubbed bronze.  Oh, how I love me some oil-rubbed bronze (ORB).  No, I really love me some ORB.  Just look...you'll fall in love too.  Anyhoo, the original hardware that came on the top two drawers was slightly smaller than the bottom drawers.  I had to end up using some of the top drawer original hardware for the third drawer.  Thankfully the hardware still covered the original holes and I just drilled holes slighty closer together to fit the hardware.  By the way...this is not what I should have done.  I should have figured it all out ahead of time, filled the holes, and then drill the new holes.  I did not.  Slacker; I know!

Here is the completed dresser with the hardware back in place.  I also had to put a new track in drawer three, but I used a simple (and cheap) track kit from Lowe's that you cut to size.  I cut it, glued it, and screwed it.  Bottabingbottaboom, that's how it's done!  The entire piece was sealed with clear wax.

 Did I mention I had some assistance along the way?  Just look at this cute little bitty puppy that helped me out!

 

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