Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE a good furniture makeover. It’s so satisfying to take a piece that has been cast off and give it a totally new look so it can be appreciated again. Plus, I hate to pay retail price for ANYTHING… for obvious reasons. (Today, I saw a factory-distressed console table “on sale” for over $1,200. Such lunacy!!) But I digress….

Old dressers are great candidates because they offer TONS of extra storage and are fairly easy to paint. I found this fantastic but… well… uninspiring Broyhill dresser at Goodwill for around $25. I had already removed the drawers when I remembered to take a “before” pic. 🙂

It was missing one of its drawers and the top was pretty beat up, but since I was planning to refinish it, I figured the “flaws” would just help shape the makeover. I sanded the top really well to get rid of most of the dings and dents. As for the missing drawer, I found a piece of scrap oak at Home Depot and used one of the other drawer faces to create a template for a false front. We installed it in the bottom-right drawer space using hinges and a magnetic closure so we can flip it down and use it for our cable box and other TV components.

When I bought it, the previous owner had already removed all the pulls, which is fine because I’m sure I would have wanted to change them anyway. I bought these cool pyramid pulls on Amazon… $15 for a 10-pack.

I created the white boxes using 1″ painter’s tape around the edges of the drawer and taping off another square leaving a 1/2″ gap. I sealed the edges of the tape with a coat of the blue base color paint before painting 2 coats of white over it. That helped prevent the white from bleeding under the edges of the tape since the blue had already filled any gaps. (I learned that trick a while back and it works like a charm. There’s a great tutorial at Bloglovin…. check it out!)

As for refinishing, I used my orbital sander + sanding disks, Killz primer (1 coat), Behr “Agave” paint in satin finish (2 coats), and Minwax Polycryllic satin finish (2 coats). Here are the steps:

1. Remove all drawers, door, pulls, hinges, etc. Place over dropcloths or outside.
2. Sand all surfaces well to remove grime and create a good surface for the paint to stick to. I used 100 grit sanding discs.
3. Wipe surfaces down with a damp rag or paper towel to remove dirt and sanding dust.
4. Use a high density foam roller to apply a coat of primer to dresser, door, and drawer faces. Let dry.
5. Rinse/dry roller and apply 2 coats of chosen paint color. (Sand between coats if you notice any bumps, ridges, or dust in the paint.) Let dry.
6. Create white boxes using painter’s tape and white paint.
7. Using a clean paint brush, apply 2 coats of polyurethane/polycryllic to protect from damage. (Let dry completely between coats).
8. Install drawer pulls and put everything back together.

The total cost of this project was around $60 (that’s the dresser plus paint, primer, and drawer pulls). I saved some money since I already had painter’s tape, rollers, brushes, and polycryllic. Add another $20 for those items, and $80 is still a bargain for such a fun piece!

Hope this inspires a little furniture rescue mission in your future!

XOXO