Chest of Drawers Makeover

I have an easy chest of drawers makeover to share with you. Or, do you call this a dresser?

This chest of drawers makeover was a fairly easy project, no tools involved!

Antique Chest of Drawers

The chest of drawers is in decent shape, but folks around here aren’t appreciative of it in it’s natural beauty. If you don’t like painted furniture, look away.

Look what I found, the missing hardware. That made me happy. As you can see, the drawers are in really good shape.

This date was stamped on the drawer bottom. Could this dresser really be 99 years old?

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Assess Furniture & Make Repairs

What is this piece on the back of the chest of drawers called? I googled and couldn’t find anything. Anyhoo—it was in need of repair. I used Gorilla Wood Glue along with the original nails to reattach it.

Moving Large Furniture Without Help

I needed to move the chest of drawers from the storage garage to my driveway in order to work on it. A regular dolly won’t work because of the tall legs. I found it easiest to remove the drawers (because of the weight) and lay it down on my furniture dolly with the handle. This thing is awesome!

Remove Grime from Chest of Drawers

I removed the hardware from the drawers and got busy prepping the antique chest of drawers.

Generally, I use TSP for cleaning my furniture pieces. But, this TSP Substitute is what I had on hand and it worked really well. The proof is on the rag!

Chest of Drawers Makeover with Milk Paint

Are you surprised to see that I am doing this chest of drawers makeover with a brush and not my favorite Finish Max? As you can see, I didn’t want full coverage on this piece. I wanted some of the original finish to show through. That’s a difficult look to get with a sprayer. This General Finishes Milk Paint went on quickly and easily with the chip brush.

The casters were removed for easier painting. As I painted the legs, I wiped back some of the paint as I applied it.

The top of the antique chest of drawers got the same “light touch” of the paint brush.

This is the front side. This wasn’t really a wash, as I didn’t dilute the paint. I guess it was more of a dry brush technique.

Cleaning Furniture Hardware

I wasn’t sure of what I was going to do with the hardware, but I knew it needed to be cleaned. I chose to spray it down with Krud Kutter.

Using a paint brush to get into the crevices of the hardware seemed to work really well. Take a look at the dirt that was coming off.

Spray Painting Drawer Pulls

Every one of the drawer pulls looked different. The colors were all over the place, so I opted to spray paint them with a hammered finish paint. This paint was so old, and there was only a tiny bit in the can. I can’t believe it worked!

Chest of Drawers Makeover | Waxing

The brown furniture wax I used was also old. I really need to start using this stuff up, so I have a better turnover.

Black Chest of Drawers

After waxing the top and the drawers, I wasn’t completely pleased with the look. I gave another quick coat of the milk paint over the patchy looking wax. What do you think of the golden drawer pulls with the black paint?

In order to move it over to The Sugar Shack, I had to remove all the drawers and put it on the furniture dolly again.

I cleaned the casters with the Krud Kutter. They look so much better! The good news is, this piece can be used with or without the wooden casters.

So, are you mad at me for painting it? My general rule is that I only refinish and restore family pieces. Have you seen Mammaw’s Dresser? That’s one I didn’t paint!

I think it looks so much prettier all dressed in black, don’t you? I hope this easy chest of drawers makeover inspires you to tackled a piece of furniture you’ve been putting off!

gail

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