Purple Dresser

OMG, I'm so ridiculously in love with our new purple dresser in our dining room. The best part is that it was REALLY inexpensive. Here's the breakdown...

• Dresser: FREE (my department head at JMU donated it to us!)
• Paint (Clark & Kensington's "paint+primer" Custom Color): FREE (I picked it up on one a "free paint weekend" at Ace Hardware)
• Knobs: $19.99 (A pack of 10 from Walmart)
• Stain (Minwax Polyshades, Bombay Mohagany GLOSS): $7.50 (and we only used about 1/4 of the can!)
• Paintable Wallpaper (Allen & Roth): $18.00 (We bought 57 square feet and we only used a few square feet of it!)

TOTAL: $45.49 (And we still have about 3/4 of the can of stain and about 50 square feet left of the wallpaper!)

When we got the dresser, it was in pretty rough shape. The drawers would not open and close easily, there were stickers, nicks, scratches, and dents all over it. The first step was to remove all of the hardware and sand the hell out of it. I like to use Wes' electric sander and a sanding block for the non-flat surfaces. We sanded it on Friday.

The next step was to stain the top. Wes likes to stain, so he was responsible for that. He uses a staining sponge and wears gloves when he stains. He put three coats on the top on Friday afternoon.

On Saturday morning, I started the painting process. I put three coats of paint on the entire thing (except the sides where the paintable wallpaper was going to go). Once that was done, I applied the wallpaper (it's an awesome paintable wallpaper that is textured) Saturday afternoon. The instructions were really clear and easy to understand: dunk in water for 30 seconds, stick to furniture, squeegee the glue out to the sides, clean up all of the excess glue.

On Sunday morning, I checked to make sure the wallpaper was dry (you're supposed to wait 24 hours). Then, I started painting it with the same color as the rest of the dresser. Three coats later, I felt like I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Wes went and bought the knobs that night. We put them on and then tried to put the whole dresser together (i.e. put the drawers in). I knew that the drawers were difficult, but after doing all of that work, the drawers would not fit back in the dresser.

Wes to the rescue! He took each drawer out on the porch and sanded them to make them thinner. Now each drawer smoothly opens and closes in the dresser. I put the finishing paint touches on it last night and voila! Staged with a few plates, a lamp, and ceramic bird in the corner of our dining room and I'm in love. I can't stop looking at it!

Onto the next project! This is going to be the summer of painted furniture in the Rosier house!