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Bold, yet subtle

Hello all!

I really love how this turned out and wish I had a little boy so I could decorate his room around this piece. Unfortunately, the little boy I have (my husband) is in a room I have to sleep in too and I already have that one decorated to my taste. Alas, with small houses, you cant have/keep everything! BUT, that just gives me the pleasure of selling, er, I mean sharing it.



This is how she started off. My little boy looked at me askanse when I raised my hand to bid on this dresser. "Really?" his eyes asked me. But I saw something beyond the messed up exterior and mismatched drawer pulls. So I raised my hand for that $1 bid. I saw those 1940 style legs and I wanted to renew the life of this dresser!




I started off with sanding her down. Alot. Some would recommend stripping, but if I am going to paint anyway, I skip that step. Basically, I want the new paint to adhere to the surface, so I have to rough up the original paint job and sand down the scratches.








Then, I had to flip it over and fix the legs. A little wood glue worked that out. (Sneak peak at another piece I did at the same time!) I then painted the whole thing white. Twice. :-) After drying...




I taped it off! I am currently a big fan of patterns. Understated, yet patterns nevertheless. So, I opted for STRIPES! Stripes are fun and vibrant. Why not? The whole dresser measured 32in wide. I devided that by 8 and got 4. So, I would have eight 4in stripes. 4 white and 4 tbd (I didnt know yet).

However, I had a blue batch of paint. It was BRIGHT! So I added a bit to my white paint, until I got a color I liked. I didnt want a huge contrast, but I wanted enough of one to make it stand out.




I missed the next step in a picture, sorry. I basically filled in the "wide" batches of tape to paint the stripes blue. Then after two coats, I let it dry and then pulled the tape off. I was really digging it!






After love comes marriage, after painting comes poly. Poly who? Polyurethane. I use water based poly for the furniture I work with, and I roll most of it on with a foam roller. I use a paint brush for more detailed areas. You want a very thin coat of poly. Thicker coats will dry uneavenly and maybe even leave areas where it conglomerates and leaves a huge glop. (Is glop a word?) Doesnt matter. I let it dry according to directions and then gave it a second thin coat.




Knobs: Sorry, no picture there either. Im just getting started in this blogging thing, give me a bit of slack. There were only seven knobs that matched. They were brass and all chippy. Yet, I went on search of a match. The closest one was not a match at all and it was $5.61. For ONE. I vetoed that and went in search of eight new pulls. I could have gone all funky, but I wanted to save money and get something that was functional. I found wodden pulls at Lowes. Two for $1.50. That I could do! So, I spent another $6 for new drawer pulls. I painted and put poly on them and waited (impatiently) to let them dry. I wanted to see the finished product!






The instructions on poly says to let it cure for 48 hours. I waited 24 before putting the pulls on. Yeah, I got impatient. But, I do really like how it turned out! Let me know what you think!




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