Monday, April 6, 2009

Todays Project

On Mondays all the extra kids come late (not 5 am) so it is supposed to be my sleep in day, but I don't usually make it pas 6:15 so I get up and do projects. Brendan has this ugly hand me down dresser set that we got from my Great-Grandmother. The picture doesn't do it justice, it is even uglier in person.
Here is what they looked like before I started.

He got a new bed this year so I wanted to refinish the dressers to match his bed but it is a solid wood dresser with laminate printed to look like wood glued to it. I couldn't peal or sand the laminate off so I had to get creative. I went to the paint department at Home Depot and Walmart with a piece of the bed and they didn't have any paint or stains that were close to the color of the bed. So I got on the internet to find something and wasn't successful. I tried to find a faux finishing kit as well and couldn't. I was tired of having dressers in my garage so I decided to do some experimenting. I bought a paint that was way to light and a stain that was way to dark. I figured I could play around with paint to stain ratio until it looked right. I was shocked when it came out right on the first try. It looked exactly like what I wanted. I just painted everything orange and brushed the stain over it and let it dry.


Pictures taken during painting.


And this is what they looked like when they were finished.


I think they match pretty well.

3 comments:

Sharla said...

Wow! That turned out great! SO I guess the heater worked to get them dry huh. You are so talented... way to make it beautiful

MammaMelgar said...

They're still a little tacky so I told him he wasn't allowed to touch them until I come put his clothes away. I think one more day and they should be dry.

Remodelaholic said...

Wow! Good job! I love finding out a good little trick or two. I'll file that away for future reference. (i too have a very ugly dresser, even worse than yours, I am sure, someone had abandoned it on the street when I found it, and brought it home, poor little orphan, but it will have life again soon!)