The Coffey House: Dresser Repourpose

My oldest son has been in desperate need of a new dresser for some time now. When we lived in our old house and he moved into his 'big boy' room I had bought him a dresser online from Kohls. Do NOT purchase furniture online. Even though it had a rather hefty price tag attached, it was a complete disappointment. I should have returned it but instead decided it would do.

Mistake.

It was far too small and poorly made. But it served its purpose for a few years.

Now that he is nearly 9, his clothes are far to big to fit in the tiny dresser so there has grown to be piles in his room of clean laundry because of this.

Craigslist... shall I consider you my favorite furniture store?

I think I will.

Enter this little gem.

Pardon my lack of before photos. My little helpers were faster than I and quickly had the drawers taken out and drug into the yard for me to begin.

But, you sort of get the picture.

When I began my hunt for a dresser I was looking for something with minimal scalloping and detail since this would be going into a boys room. This one pretty much fit the bill.

But after several days of work. The dresser went from this...

To this...

This was a rather easy process. Just time consuming but well worth the effort.

First, the dresser had to sit for several days on our covered front porch to 'air out' since it came from a heavily smoked in home. I filled it with Pier 1 fragrance packs to help with the smell. It did the trick. If airing the piece out does not work, try painting the drawers if you end up in this predicament after sending your husband to pick something up and him lacking the common sense to call you first and see if this would be okay.

The next step was to give the entire dresser a good sanding. Followed by a coat of primer and three coats of black paint. I used Rust-Oleum American Accents, Canyon Black. It's my go to black for almost any project requiring black paint.

(There is also a lack of 'in progress' pictures of this project since I had the help of a 7 and 5 year old.)

I don't generally like painting with a roller as most people will recommend when painting furniture. Most people will recommend this to avoid brush strokes, I however prefer to paint with a brush because the tiny little marks a roller makes... drives me more nuts. The trick to a good paint job with a brush is the brush itself. Buy a GREAT brush. I like Purdy brushes. Stolen from my husband's paint supplies... it results in some grumbling but they do great and don't leave marks that a cheaper brush would.

After the three coats of black paint had dried and were cured I did a light sanding to all of the edges. This is going in a boys room... ultimately, it will be damaged in some ways so it is best for me to opt for distressing prior to make any damages it sustains later not seem so obvious.

After sanding, I then applied stain to the distressed areas and then began coating the entire dresser in two coats of Minwax Paste Finishing Wax. I opted to use the Finishing Wax on the dresser rather than poly to buff away any imperfections and reach my achieved finish.

The last thing needed was hardware. After a failed trip to Menards to look for hardware... I began to search online. The hardware at Menards was roughly eight dollars a handle. Far too much for my $40 Craigslist dresser. That would be silly to spend more on the hardware than the dresser itself.

After some looking I found handles that would work perfectly at www.knobsandhardware.com

The handles that were $8ish at Menards were $1.20 online with free shipping. Score!

Total cost for the entire project...

Roughly $70.

Beautiful isn't it?

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