Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Yellow Distressed Dresser

If you follow me on Twitter- @HESturgeon then you have already seen photos of the dresser Jer and I sanded, painted and distressed. We found it at Goodwill for a whopping $60! It is Bassett Cherry wood.. I have looked online to try and find the original price, but no luck! I've never refinished or repainted anything, but Jer's mom used to own an antique store, so he knows a thing or two about it. I read this blog post and watched the videos to go along with it beforehand.
We sanded down the dresser to take the glossy finish off, so it would take paint easier. That took a couple of hours. We didn't touch the dresser for a few weeks, for no other reason than that we were busy and didn't have time. So, this past weekend, we got all of our supplies from Home Depot, put Owen in his bouncer, and went at it!

We had decided we wanted a mustard yellow.. so we chose Martha Stewart's Pencil. Alright, so here is what we did, step by step.

Supplies:
  • Sandpaper (we used 2 different grits, one very coarse and one a medium coarse)
  • Electric sander (if you have one)
  • Quart of eggshell finish paint (we have a lot left over, but this is the smallest amount they sold it in)
  • Howard's Feed N Wax
  • Paintbrushes
  • Baby wipes
  • Old rags
  • Blue paper towels (sold at hardware stores)
  • New knobs (if you aren't keeping the old ones) and make sure they will fit, we had to bend ours to make them fit bc they were an odd length
  • Drop cloths
  1. Sanded down completely with an electric sander and sandpaper to get into the nooks and crannies.
  2. Wiped down the dresser and drawers with baby wipes.
  3. Dry brush painted one coat on drawers and dresser.
  4. Waited about 20 minutes for it to dry.
  5. Lightly sanded paint with medium grit sandpaper.
  6. Wiped with blue paper towel.
  7. Repeated steps 3-6 two more times, until we got the color and amount of wood showing through we wanted.
  8. We then took the very coarse sand paper and sanded the edges of the dresser and drawers to make it look worn. Since there wasn't much paint, it got too worn in some places, so I went back to would lightly cover those places with a very dry brush with a tiny amount of paint.
  9. Once it was completely dry, we got two old rags and saturated them with Howard's Feed N Wax and polished everything. Waited about 20 minutes and then wiped it off with the blue paper towels.
  10. Step back and admire your awesome work ;)
The Howard's Feed N Wax didn't do any distressing to the wood, it just put a protective coat on the wood and a dull glaze, to give it that finished look! It honestly sounds like a lot of work, but we had fun doing it and can't wait for another project.

Before:

After:




Our favorite little helper:

Hopefully you find inspiration!! Happy Wednesday :)

XOXO Haley

9 comments:

  1. It looks AMAZING!!!! Love the yellow! xoxo

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  2. It looks great and I can see the rug peeking out, matches perfectly!! Way to go mama. It's seriously like the long lost twin to my turquoise one... and I love mine! So glad you found a piece you love too!!

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  3. Love it! I'm going to recruit you to help me distress furniture when we move home.

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  4. WOW! Gorgeous! Take that up as a part time job! Y'all did wonderful!

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  5. i LOVE LOVE LOVE it! this is my dream dresser for gracie's room, shabby chiced in white!! hopefully i can find one and you can be my advisor!! LOVE YOU

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  6. Great job! I love the color and you guys did a great job on the finish!

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