The Dressers Project

Darren & I got our new bedroom suit about a year ago (maybe more?), but we didn't want to throw out the old pieces that we had been using. Though ugly, they were also sturdy and free, well-constructed of solid wood, which is expensive to buy these days. So, we stored them in the garage with the idea that we would paint them for the kids to use. Kyrie's dresser, which we bought new and then I re-did when the drawers started to fall apart, was practically ramshackle, and Degen's dresser, which was part of the kids' crib, was sturdy, but didn't have a lot of space. 

So, both dressers sat in the garage for quite some time until I consulted Pinterest and the internet for the best furniture painting practices and ideas. Darren did Kyrie's dresser first and it was pretty easy. He sanded, primed, painted, sealed and attached new hardware in one long afternoon/evening. I took the wall stickers off of her old dresser and put them on the new dresser to give it a nice, girly look. She loves it! It has lots of space for all her things, and she enjoyed being able to choose how to use the drawers and putting the clothes inside neatly. 

Degen's dresser was a bit more tricky because we wanted to do something that matched his current decor, which is fire engine red with yellow & black accents. We knew we couldn't do red because matching reds is a nightmare, even with all the color-matching technology. Yellow didn't seem right and all black seemed too dark. On-line I had found examples of furniture that was painted black and then sanded to reveal the wood beneath. We liked the look of this, but wanted to incorporate the red & yellow from his existing furniture, so Darren set to work on this second dresser, which took more time. He sanded, primed and then painted red & yellow at certain places before putting on several coats of black paint. Then he sanded through the black to reveal the color beneath, sealed it and added new hardware. I really like the way it turned out, and Degen was excited for his new, big-boy dresser.

So, here are our old dressers, which were garage sale finds from when I started college and now have a new life! A big thank you to Darren for all his hard-work and going along (once again) with one of my ideas... though he put his foot down when I saw an old dresser sitting out on the curb that I thought he could re-do for some unknown purpose. 

(There's a little bit of dresser that got missed in the painting process that needs to be finished.)