Better late than never

So I'm a smidge late posting this one. I finished it the Friday before last but have been soooo busy I just didn't have the time or energy to write a new post. Anywho, the last dresser I posted about and this one I'm about to show you I bought together. They were both older dressers and showed it. This one was interesting to say the least. Here's the before.

It  doesn't look terrible but the white paint was matte and uneven and scratched up, yadda yadda. It needed to be stripped, no doubt. I started with the sander but realized that even with electricity it just was going to be too much work so I caved and bought chemicals. The upside to that is that I used Citristrip which is greener than the typical strippers so I didn't feel too bad about it.

By my count this dresser has been painted at least 7 times. And if you look at the picture below you can see that on the very bottom of all the paint there were graphics on the dresser. I made one out as a rocking horse and another was children, which I couldn't tell until I was actually scraping the paint off. I always think it's neat when you get a little bit of the history of a piece.

Can you see the rocking horse?

I actually had to apply stripper more than once in a few places. The paint was stubborn in some places.

 After stripping off as much of the paint as I could I went back to sanding and FINALLY painting! I cleaned the original glass knobs and she was finally ready for her closeup! Yay!

I've got several pieces I'll be working on over the next few weeks. I think this week's reveal is going to be an old bench I've had for at least 10 years and a night stand I picked up for free on Craigslist. You can see the other pieces I've worked on on my Facebook page. Head on over there and "Like" my page! See you again this Friday!

And here it is!

Well, one of them anyway. I'm super happy with how this turned out. I may have mentioned before that I was inspired by a table I had pinned on Pinterest. I wanted to do a gender neutral dresser because the first one was soooo girly and the next one will be feminine but more grown up. I didn't want to pigeonhole myself into a girls only corner. This is where I got my inspiration from. And now, here it is!

This is obviously the before and so sorry about missing drawers. I had already started sanding the top when I realized I hadn't taken a before picture.

And a few in betweens. The wood is so beautiful! I was so glad I'd already decided to stain it!

 And finally the after! I stained it in Ebony and then alternated the drawer with Sunbleached. The hardware is all in Oil Rubbed Bronze.

And there it is. It feels modern but also a bit nautical. I love it and my husband does, too. He actually said, "This one is going to be a bit hard to part with, huh?" :)

Oh, and check out my Facebook page I set up for selling my furniture. I don't know how to do those linky link things yet but here's the web address. https://www.facebook.com/ThePaintedCottageSC

Half way there

I spent 5 hours today on one of the dressers I'll hopefully be finishing by Wednesday. It's a tall one with five drawers. I decided to go masculine with this one. I spent and eternity sanding but I think there is a mojo to it because it seemed to go a little faster towards the end. Anyway, I was able to stain it, although I was doing it by twilight. I moved it to the driveway because there was too much dust in the garage so I took it outside and wiped it down and stained it there. Once I'd wiped off the excess stain I moved it back inside the garage to a less dusty area to rest. From what I could tell in the dim, yellow light of the garage it looks great! I may need to do a second coat to the very top of the dresser and I still need to paint the hardware or possibly replace. I haven't decided since only one of the pieces is broken. I may just make the top two knobs different than the rest. I think I have some bronze paint left so that they'll all match.

The shorter dresser is finally stripped. I had to do some touching up today. I'll start sanding it tomorrow and HOPEFULLY get started painting it. Wednesday I'll finish it up if I haven't and apply a few coats of polycrylic to the tall dresser. Last but not least, I need to find some paper to put in the bottom of the drawers to cover up old stains and whatnot and then they'll be ready to sell!

I'm really looking forward to showing these off. My first dresser was WAY girly so I want to show that I can do a more grown up feminine dresser and even do well at a man's dresser. I'm excited for the reveal! It should be no later than Thursday! See you then!