My schizophrenic project

I've had some serious inner dialogue going while working on this project, but most of it I can't print.  This dresser was a major test for me.  I wish I could say this was the first time I had to strip the paint off of something before I could start putting "my touches" on it.  But that's not the case.  Working on Alfred basically made me a professional furniture stripper, or at least I thought so.  But this sucker had nothing on Alfred.  I couldn't even name this dresser, because all the names I came up with consisted of 4 letters, and while I generally appreciate a good potty mouth, I will keep it clean. 

I found this dresser on Craigslist. 

Has such a great shape, awesome original hardware, and CASTERS!!

That's right, CASTERS!!  Good old wooden ones, attached by rusty old metal.  I love anything with casters.  So when my hubs picked this up and brought it home for me AND it had casters I was sooooo excited!

From it's before picture, it actually doesn't look too bad.  What you can't see up close is that the paint is about 4 inches thick, splattered, and bubbly, everywhere.  Once again I foolishly thought I could just sand it down and get to work.  And once again I was wrong.  Oh, so very wrong.  If my last project was painted with the devil's paintbrush, then I'm pretty sure this dresser was painted by every single member of Hell, twice!

So out came the stripper.....again!

It took me 4 flipping days to strip all the paint off of the top, sides, and 3 drawers.  Granted they weren't 12 hour days by any stretch.  But I learned that my fingers will only let me strip furniture for about 4 and a half hours straight before just giving out.  I almost cried when I got all the paint off this sucker!

Ok this is a really bad picture, but I was so excited to get the paint off, that I had to hurry up and take a picture before I grabbed the paint brush.  There were 4 coats of paint on this thing, and under all that crazy thick paint were some dings and owies that I didn't expect.  So before I could paint I had to attempt to fill in some of the dings, and give it a good all over sanding. Then I could paint...

There's lots of cute grey stuff going on down at Persnickety's, and I didn't want to be left out, so I jumped on the grey bandwagon.

But I also wanted to put my own spin on it.  So I attempted ombre drawers.  Then I got really schizophrenic and distressed the heck out of it, oh and tried using dark wax for the very first time too.  So there's definitely a lot going on, but after all that hard work I think it turned out pretty great.  For those of you looking for the specifics all the colors I used were custom mixed up by me, turned chalk paint.  Then of course I sealed it all up with 2 coats of wax.

  I also added some super cute clear knobs to the top drawer, the knobs it came with where boring icky plastic ones.  But the other 2 drawers had awesome giant knobs that were original that I actually love.  Besides the casters, the humongous knobs are my favorite thing! 

Dropped this dresser off at Persnickety's this afternoon, go check it out. 

 I am focusing on little stuff for the awesome open house next weekend the 24th....so watch for a possible tutorial on something fun, I swear.... and here are the rest of the pictures I know you're dying to see :)

 

 

 

 

~Denniel