Monday, July 2, 2012

French Provincial Dresser Before and After

Early this summer my husband and I were driving around and saw this pitiful dresser on the side of the road. I immediately wanted to pick it up, but said nothing because normally my husband encourages me, with good reason, to only have one project at a time and I already had a table and chairs to work on at that point.

Luckily he pulled the truck over without me even asking:).  I was like a giddy school girl.  I wish I had a true "before" picture to give you.  This dresser had drawers that weren't together and all going topsy turvy.  It was a mess.  However, I saw potential.

I like painting furniture because it breathes new life into old stuff.  I also like it because I get to try new things and if I don't like it, it's not a big deal because normally I sell the pieces.

From what I learned online after picking up this free dresser is that it is a French Provincial style dresser, which was apparently a very popular style in the 70's.

It came to us with broken drawers, mismatched hardware, and it was dirty,really dirty.   I had to scrub off several stains and just the general scum that had accumulated over the years.  I wish I had a picture of the water after I cleaned it.  It was so gross!

Here's the closest thing to a "before" picture.  It had already been scrubbed down and most drawers were fixed and the hardware had been removed.


I had picked up plain white primer/paint in one for free at Ace Hardware several weeks back and decided that this was the perfect project for it.  I put three coats on in most areas and four coats in some where I thought the gold was still bleeding through.

I originally painted the hardware white, but I started running out of white spray paint in the middle of the project and didn't want to buy any.  Then I looked online and found a similar dresser with black hardware.  Luckily I had a lot of leftover paint from another project in black, so that worked like a charm!

Here's the final result.

It's crisp, clean, and perfect for a lot of rooms.

The only thing that I paid for were the two knobs and that was only about $5 total.

Best part.... I sold it on Craigslist for $75!  I'm going to stash the cash to go towards a used Clavinova.

What projects have you been up to?




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