Refinished Dresser

In June of 2018, I also became a homeowner for the very first time. I've found a lot of enjoyment in organizing and decorating spaces. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and stay-at-home orders, I've had a lot of time to get into home projects that I otherwise would probably be still putting off.

One room I had the chance of improving is the spare bedroom. We had this old dresser, that quite honestly I found to be a bulky eyesore, however, I knew I'd be able to spruce it up in some form at some point. For me, this is always better than spending money on new furniture.

I started by sanding down the shiny wood stain. After cleaning that off, I got out some leftover blue paint that I had used to paint an accent wall in the living room. 

After getting it all painted, I realized it needed new hardware as one of the old drawer pulls was broken and unable to be repaired easily. I went rummaging around for decorative door knobs I had purchased and used in my West Chester apartment. Unfortunately with the new house, I hadn't found a place I could use them. As it turns out, this dresser had a drawer where I could use 3 of the 5 knobs I already had.

The decorative knobs are very colorful with gold accents. Therefore, I wanted to get some new pulls to complement them. Little did I know, polished brass/gold pulls and handles are not the easiest things to come by. I ended up ordering some simple polished brass pulls online to match. The last step was to paint the "key holes" on the bottom two drawers. While they are just decorative, i did not want to pop them off but the color was too dark and worn. I happened to have some gold liquid leaf paint I could easily brush onto the key holes that nearly matched perfectly.

The dresser is now in the spare room, and I could not be happier with how it turned out. Also in the room is a ladder I refinished and painted (I'll post that in the future), and an end table.

The end table is another piece I've had for a while that was a similar brown wood color. However, the piece is not totally made out of wood. It wasn't something I could easily sand well, so I just went and painted it with the same leftover paint. The corners had some imperfections due to wear and tear, but the paint quickly made it look like new. The problem was, as I suspected, the end table material was not easily holding the paint. A few times I easily scratched off the blue paint. Again, I went rummaging through my supplies to find clear Mod Podge. I applied it with a small roller and a brush where the roller couldn't reach. The roller gave it this subtle texture that I end up really liking. Lo and behold, the Mod Podge worked as a perfect clear coat, preventing easy scratches.