I've been pretty adamant about my need for a dresser, ever since moving in with P. He's more of a clothes rack guy, which is totally fine with me, but there's something about dressers that feel so cozy! They're also a great storage option, and we have to make every little inch of space count! I was on the hunt for a good chest of drawers that we could add to our room and at some point, I had the idea to buy a second hand dresser and just repaint it. I found the perfect chest of drawers at a secondhand furniture place for an astounding £30, which is basically a steal. Seriously, don't knock buying secondhand til you've tried it! It took a few days to finish but here is the final product!
The knobs that the dresser had when I bought it were very old, and not really my cup of tea. One drawer was also missing a knob, but since I was replacing all of them, I just took them all off. If this had been a true wood dresser, I would have sanded the whole thing down from top to bottom. However, I discovered as I started sanding the front of the first drawer that it was some odd wood/chip board hybrid. It didn't sand down too well in some places, so I mainly just gave a light sand to the parts of the drawers that had the knobs (they'd left a ring indented into the "wood"), and then moved on.
When I first had the idea to paint my dresser, I googled chalk furniture paint about a zillion times to make sure I had the right information! I had no idea there were so many types of paints to choose from! After much hemming and hawing, I settled on Rust-Oleum Furniture Paint in Chalky White, which I was able to pick up right from my local
Homebase. I painted one coat and let it dry overnight. Then I painted on a second coat and let that dry overnight as well. I got a very fine sandpaper and went over the entire surface and the fronts of the drawers so that the paint would be smooth and to get rid of some of the lines. I also sanded down in a few spots so that the darker wood peaked through.
I picked up this beautiful wallpaper to line the drawers with. The less of the original wood I could see, the better. The first drawer was a bit of trial and error, but I worked out the best way to line the drawers, which was to cut out a piece to cover each side and the bottom including an extra 1cm on each side...
I was the most nervous about this step... still, I'd come this far, so there was nothing but to go for it. The brand of chalk paint I used had a soft wax that went with it, so I went ahead and used that (Rust-Oleum Furniture Wax in Clear, also from
Homebase.) All I had to do is rub on the wax in small sections, then removed the excess. Once I did the whole dresser and the drawers, I let it cure overnight. Once it had, I then buffed the wax with a t-shirt. Labels: diy, home decor, lifestyle
