Here is the desk/dresser before:
It has 3 drawers, and the top "drawer" opens up to be the desk part:
It had been well used for many years, so there were plenty of dents, stains, and blemishes, like this one:
I got a spray-on stripper to take the varnish off. I did one side of the desk myself, but I was so thankful for help from my mom on the rest because I have been so tired lately! We got the whole thing stripped and then sanded it down:
After being sanded, the desk looked so different! The orange-y color was the old finish, and the wood underneath was fairly light.
I had some blue paint that I got free from Glidden last year, and I wanted to use this to accent the drawers.
The last step was to add a varnish to seal everything really well. We did one coat of varnish, let that dry, then used a very fine grain sandpaper before adding a second coat of varnish.
I LOVE the way it turned out! We painted the walls in my daughter's room yellow, so the blue and the dark wood really add a beautiful accent to the room. One thing I wanted to do to make things a little more special was to get some new knobs. I saw a DIY project some time ago that had white drawer pulls with black numbers on a refinished dresser (I can't find the site now, but I will keep looking to link back to them!), and I really wanted to do something like that. My mom ended up finding these vintage knobs in a shop in Old Ellicott City:
My mom and I have both gotten bit by the refinishing bug now, I think! While it was a lot of work, we ended up with a beautiful piece of furniture that is personalized. I am looking forward to telling my daughter the story about this project, and it will be really special for her to get to use something that was her great-grandfather's. He passed away when she was just a few weeks old, so this will be a way to pass memories down to a new generation!
Oh my gosh I LOVE it!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteVery nice! I really like how you put the blue and the stain together; I never would have thought to do that!
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