So excited to finally be sharing the final product of my dresser refinishing project! I hit a bit of a hang-up after I finished painting it when it came to the hardware, which is what held me up from really finishing and sharing it. But I’m finally calling it done! Keep reading for the details of the project.
I got this dresser 2nd hand from a Facebook group for Charlotte moms for about $50. I thought it was perfect for a little project!
I wanted to try to avoid having to sand it if at all possible, so I decided to give CitriStrip a try because I’d heard good things about it. So I got my supplies together:
Please note that I didn’t link the CitriStrip…that’s because it did NOT work out well for me. I ended up with this thick orange gunk all over the dresser that I wasn’t quite sure how to get off.
So I did a little more research and saw that a lot of people had run into this same problem. An easy fix that was recommended was using denatured alcohol on it to dry the gunk out, then it could be sanded down. So much for my plans to avoid sanding! It ended up not being too bad though. The denatured alcohol did it’s job and dried it right up and I only had to sand down the parts that were raised bumps to even them out.
Then I used this BIN primer that supposedly allows you to not have to strip or sand the wood…should have just started with this! It worked really well and I highly recommend! Then I did 2 coats of Sherwin Williams White Dogwood, which was the perfect super pale blush color! I let each coat dry overnight in between.
The last step was to add the new hardware I got to the dresser, which is where I ran into the problem. I got these drawer pulls and cabinet pulls because I love the look of clean/simple/modern gold hardware on a vintage looking piece. After some trial and error I realized that these won’t work because the drawers on this dresser are curved right where the handles go. The original handles were bendable and shaped to the curve of the dresser. The new ones I bought definitely were not bendable. So I spent a bit of time trying to find some hardware that had the look I wanted and could bend to go with the curves of the dresser, but I finally accepted that it just wasn’t going to happen. So I gave in and just got some gold spraypaint and painted the original drawer pulls.
I’m super happy with the finish product! I do wish I could have changed out the hardware, but I think it still looks pretty darn good! Exactly the girly touch I needed to my office space 🙂
xo,
Shannon
