OLD BABY DRESSER TRANSFORMS INTO MASTER BEDROOM LINGERIE CHEST

Get Creative With That Old Unused Furniture

Don’t give that old crummy dresser away! A couple of years ago just after my daughter was married, she called me up and said, “What are you going to do with that old baby dresser I used to have in my room?” Translated, that means, “I need a dresser and I can’t afford to buy one.

Can I have your old junky one?”

As a mom, you need to learn to read between the lines when you get those calls. Since I have an emotional attachment to that old thing, I told her, “Umm, I don’t think so.” She of course knows how to read in between my lines as well. She knew it meant, “I’m attached; I have no idea why I’d like to keep it, but you can’t have it.” It’s a little dance we do quite often.

Fortunately, I now have reason to keep my old junk.

Here is the before picture of that old baby dresser that I used for my first baby until my last child left. It started out blonde wood and years ago I painted it white with little sponge painted characters for my nursery. Isn’t it funny that years after you do a project that you thought turned out nice, you look at it and say to yourself,

“What was I thinkin’?”

After my kids grew and moved out, it retired into a back room craft and pattern catch all. It sat for years waiting for me to make it useful and beautiful again…kinda like the Velveteen Rabbit. It turned into a real dresser after it was worn and tattered, forgotten in the back room of the basement. Here is the before picture, the way it looked when Jillian asked for it and I had no reason not to give it to her other than my own sentimentality.
Some of my kids are saying as they read this,

“Yup, yup, I remember that.”

This was my first spray paint project. You would think I would start out small. But not me – I always have to start out with something that could be difficult. It’s just my way, I guess.

1. I hand sanded it with a sand paper sponge to rough up the surface a bit.
2. Then I laid the individual pieces on cardboard in the front yard and painted the drawers tan and outside frame walnut brown.
3. Before painting the walnut brown, I put a coat of tan on the edges so I could lightly sand off some of the walnut brown edges to give it an antiquey look.
4. Since it was really hot outside, some of my spray paint dried in the air before hitting the dresser top, so I sanded it a couple of times in-between coats to give it a smoother finish.

I’m pretty happy with the look. I put it in my new master bedroom. I love it. It looks very expensive – you would never know how icky it was before (except now you do since I showed you a picture).

I bought a set of nice new knobs at Menards – which for me was quite pricey, but they were oil rubbed bronze and fit the picture in my mind of what I really wanted.

I painted an old bright blue desk to match. Right now I have it in my guest room. The hardware is original and I painted the drawer walnut, put a sticker on it, painted over that with the tan and pulled the sticker off so there would be a design on the drawer.

I considered hand painting the design but went for the easier approach since I don’t have much talent in that area. Here’s a picture of it as it laid in wait to be moved to our new home. Because of the lighting in two different rooms, they look different shades, but in fact are the same paint colors. I used satin dark walnut and tan spray paint by Rustoleum.

It’s pretty amazing what you can do with a little time, courage, and can of spray paint.

I have kept my theme colors through out the house pretty much the same and just accented in other colors. I love neutrals and it makes it much easier to move deco and furniture around from room to room as needed if there is continuity of basic colors.

What are your basic and accent colors?

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