Thrift Store Dresser Redo

 

I have been wanting to repaint a dresser for a while now.  We are renovating a lake house, so I thought that this would be a great place to use a dresser.  My husband loves rustic decor, and he loves to travel to Montana, so I have decided to use materials that are very rustic in this house.

I came across this dresser at my local thrift store for $40.  I thought it was too feminine for the living space at the lake, but the dresser has dovetail drawers, and it is very sturdy.  It does have fingernail polish and stickers stuck on it, but I know that with a little work, it can be beautiful.  The first thing I did was give it a good cleaning.  I vacuumed the drawers, and I used a blow dryer on the stickers to remove them easily. The heat from the dryer removed all the sticky residue.

My first thoughts are how am I going to make this feminine dresser work with my rustic decor.  I decided to paint the dresser white, paint the drawers a different color, and by adding new hardware, it should work in our living space.

I lightly sanded the piece with a palm sander.  The sander made the top of the dresser smoother, but it did not remove the color from the fingernail polish, but that is okay because the primer will cover it up.

I have read over and over on Pinterest to prime furniture before repainting it.  I have found priming furniture is a very important step. It will give you a smoother finish than without a priming.  After I painted the dresser white, I decided to use some brown paint on the drawers that I had used on a previous project.

 

Anytime I see interesting cabinet knobs or pulls at the thrift store, I buy them because I love to change things up on furniture that I have or to use on  future projects.  The bag of drawer pulls was $2.99.  The original hardware was too fancy for the look that I was going for, so I used some hardware that I think is interesting and different.  I had painted the mirror that I was using above the dresser gold, so I added some silver paint to the mirror so that the mirror and the dresser would look match better.  Since I did not have to buy knew hardware or paint, this dresser cost less than $50.