I have this obsession with furniture lately. Mostly old, ugly furniture. I keep looking at pieces that at first glance, may look awful.. yet I imagine what they could look like with a little love. I’m learning it takes a lot of time, patience and love to redo furniture. Thankfully I had Eric to help with this labor of love! Here’s the BEFORE picture……..
I call this a labor of love for 2 reasons. First, my husband usually hates these projects and I realize he must really love me to take this one on right before we were moving! I’m sure there were a thousand other things he’d rather be doing yet he put them aside for me. #blessed
Second, I was 8 months pregnant when we found this piece and determined to have it fixed it up to use for our bedroom dresser before the baby arrived.
I can’t take ANY credit for the actual work that went it to this. It was all Eric! He gave it a good sanding, couple coats of paint and I added some new hardware. Voila. Exactly what we were looking for! Oh, and the added dresser drawer liners and hidden lattice were the icing on the cake!
And the AFTER……
We picked this piece up on Mothers Day and it was finished right before baby Kinzie arrived! Most moms want to go to brunch on Mother’s Day but I preferred to bargain hunt this year 😉 Thank goodness Eric agreed to help me tackle this project otherwise it would still be sitting in our garage. The dresser is very long and narrow which fits our bedroom layout perfectly. It also has a lot of storage which is a huge plus. I had been looking for awhile and glad I waited since we got such a great deal on this piece.
Side note, my new favorite source to find used, quality pieces are local Facebook groups. I had no idea until recently that almost all the suburbs (and parts of the city) have these member only groups where people sell things for prices that are hard to beat. You can find anything from clothes, home decor items, kids stuff and more. Basically anything you would find at garage sales. Since you are buying from individuals, and locally, there is no mark up that you would get from a consignment or resale shop.
I belong to ALL the surrounding suburb groups now and am constantly on the look out for new pieces. Looking for something particular? Let me know Chicagoland.
Drawer Liners:
I also added these scented drawer liners (you can find them on Amazon). I clearly have a thing for flowers! Since this was a used dresser, it’s a nice little touch to add a fresh bottom with a great scent.
Hardware sources:
The tricky part here was the hardware. We kept the existing holes and I originally wanted pulls on the bottom drawers. However, it was not an easy task to find nice ones with this particular distance so we went with knobs. I mixed them up since the top drawers and middle cabinet are a little different. We used these 2 knobs (both at Home Depot):
Top drawers and middle cabinet knobs: (Liberty brand): 1-1/4 in. Polished Nickel and Clear Glass Ball Cabinet Knob
Bottom drawer knobs (from the Martha Stewart Living collection): 1-1/4 in. Polished Nickel Finial Cabinet Knob
I’ll leave you with a little teaser for tomorrow’s post…. almost time for a giveaway!! And thanks to my sister Stephanie for helping me take photos for this post (that’s me trying to pose naturally :)!! Hope to see you again soon!
