thrifty thursday - girly dresser redo

I am so excited for today's post!! I've been working on my daughter's dresser for a while now and I'll give you the details below. I would have had the post last week but I lost one of the dresser handles and trying to find another one for a dresser that is probably as old as me was not fun. Thankfully I found it and all is well again!! hehe

But first, let's get to the good stuff, shall we??!! Here's what it looks like now:

I'm just so thrilled with how it turned out. It makes me smile each and every time I walk in her room :) Especially since this is how it looked before:

Yuck, I know!! But this dresser had such neat details and I knew that all it needed was some TLC (and a great coat of paint!) I mean, aren't the legs on this dresser cute??

First of all, excuse the weird shadowing in these photos. My daughter's room is purple and gets mostly indirect light. I've tried every which way to take great pics in her room to no avail. Something about that purple paint makes some weird shadows, especially when I'm taking pics on the wall opposite from her window.

But let's get back to the dresser! I used True Turquoise by Glidden. 

It's the same color I used for her side table redo. I had my hubby sand the top of the dresser because it had a shiny finish. I didn't sand any other part of the dresser but I did use a primer first. I really wanted this dresser to turn out nice so I wanted to do it right. It took 2 coats of paint and we also put a coat of polyurethane on the top to keep it from getting it dinged up (cause this is going in an 8 yr old's room remember!)

Now for the top I got the idea here to do the little scalloped frame. 

Isn't it cute??! I just love it. I put the tape on the edge of one side of the dresser, then ripped it in half lengthwise weaving so it would look a bit scalloped. I did that for each side. 

Just make sure that the tape is on there securely so that when you paint none of it leaks underneath ruining your shape.

Then I used a roller to roll on the white paint (2 coats). My only regret is that I didn't make it more scalloped but I'm still happy with it. By the way, be careful if your daughter decides to go pick up her guinea pig in the middle of a painting project...

Yep, she picked the most inopportune time to go get Bugsy...Geez!!


I also used the original hardware and spay painted them white. I did prime them first, then one coat of the white.

Here's a tip when painting knobs & small stuff. You don't want to lay them directly on the surface they're sitting on because when they dry they'll stick. And that's not good. So I usually use some toothpicks in a piece of styrofoam to hold them up.

This way also makes it easier to spray paint around all the little edges & details. I mentioned above that I thought I'd lost one of the pieces. Of course, it was one of the pieces that holds the handle on. Let me tell you, trying to find hardware that will fit a vintage dresser (that doesn't cost a fortune) is hard to do. Thankfully my hubby found it in the back of my truck so we didn't have to worry about finding a replacement. Cause even if I wanted to buy 'non-vintage' hardware, the holes on this dresser were an odd size. So keep that in mind if you're refinishing older furniture. Make sure it has all its parts!!


And now for my next project - decorating above that dresser. I'll give you a hint, I'm probably going to be doing something with this: