Chalk Paint Dresser
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Hey friends! Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years, and feel pumped about this fresh start. 2020 certaintly impacted us all and I pray that 2021 serves us better. Anyhow, what better way to start his new year with a blog post about a furniture makeover!
One of my goals for this year is to begin to do more things I love and things I enjoy to do. One of those things is crafting and the other is to redo furniture! I love a good before and after and am also a huge fan of taking someone else’s trash and turning it into my treasure. Fernando would say, that I am bad about pulling over on the side of the road to check out a piece of furniture marked free or thrown out to the curb for trash pick up. I have no shame in admitting I have taken pieces like this back to my house and repurposed them.
That is what I have done here with Rhett’s bedroom dresser. I found this dresser free about 5 years ago. It was on the curb across the street from the house we used to rent in downtown McKinney, Texas. Someone had set this out on the for bulk trash pickup and I knew that it was a steal! A solid piece of furniture with nothing wrong with it, I knew I could make it my own. I initially left it as the plain wood dresser that it was. I wasn’t sure what to do with it at that time. So, I used it in the girls’ room for all of their clothes. Soon after, when chalk paint hit the stores I decided to paint it.
I chose to paint it white and grey. I wanted a modern farmhouse look to it. So, I decided to go with the two common colors that filled my house. Once Rhett was born I began to use it as a diaper changing table. It was the perfect length to fit the changing pad on and to still have some extra room.
However, once we moved into our new home and we began to design Rhett’s room I didn’t like the grey and white combo colors. So, I told myself to sand it down and paint it all white. 6 months later and here I am sanding it down and finally painting it.
Before:
Dresser painted white with painted gray drawers.
How I Did It ::
Step 1 ::
I started with sanding off the old paint and the glossy shined finish that was on there before using an 80 course sanding sheet connected to my sander (if you’re in need of a good inexpensive sander I used this one). I wanted to make sure to bring it down to its natural wood color even though this dresser is not made of “real” wood, so I could give it a nice clean finish. Having this dresser for so long, I had painted and repainted this dresser so much from touch ups that I had a lot of paint build up on the sides and corners. I wanted a clean start to it.
What was alarming to me is that the old white chalk paint sanded off with this blue layer underneath it. At first I thought was something that was rubbing onto the wood from the sander -ha ha, but quickly realized it was the chalk paint.
I sanded the entire dresser, but chose to not sand the drawers. I wanted to distress the drawers, so I wanted to leave the gray paint on there to show through the distressing.
Step 2 ::
Next, I wiped down all of wood shavings from sanding off of the dresser with a wet wash cloth. You don’t want to soak the dresser with water. Just wipe it down really good with the wet rag. I also vacuumed the whole dresser just to make sure I had no more shavings getting into my paint.
Step 3 ::
Paint! I chose the Rust-oleum Chalk Paint in White Linen. I chose this paint because I had read so many good reviews about it. Before I used the chalk paint found at Walmart- the Waverly brand. I like this chalk paint for small projects, however, I have noticed that furniture covered in this paint stains easily and it is not the best quality for a big piece of furniture. So, I decided to try the Rust-oleum brand chalk paint to see if the reviews meant what they said. I have to say that I am hooked on it! I love the finish it gave this dresser.
Make sure to stir your chalk paint well before using it. You want the paint to go on evenly and not have weird discoloration.
If you plan on doing a project like this at home, I recommend to use a chalk paint paint brush like the one here. Remember the brush you choose to use will determine the overall look of your finished product, so you’ll want to choose a good quality brush.
I painted the sanded parts of the dresser with three coats of paint. Making sure to allow the first coat to fully dry before I started the second one.
Step 5 ::
After painting the dresser inside the house, I took it outside one more time to sand it down with a 220 fine sanding sheet. I wanted to smooth out the paint and have it feel soft to the touch. I also used the sander to distress parts of the dresser sanding the paint off in the corners of the dresser, drawers and on the built in handles on the dresser drawers. Don’t you LOVE how it turned out? I do!
Step 6 ::
I sealed it all up by adding the finishing coat using the Rust-oleum Matte Clear Finishing. I wanted something with the matte finishing to it and didn’t want super glossy which is the finish that I had put on this dresser before.
Ta-da! Here she is! Isn’t she a beauty! I love it and its so wonderful to see its finished look inside of his room.
