Dresser Upcycle and Update

I had been absolutely JONESING (I've been using that word like crazy lately) to get my hands on a cheap, yet solid wood dresser that I could turn into a beautiful piece of furniture for extra storage in my kitchen. 

However, I had been forced to set my sights on a different furniture search since hubs and I purchased a california king bed (for a STEAL at $170 and YES it was brand new!). We needed a taller dresser to fit everything in the room in a way that still gave us space to move around. For the life of me, I could find nothing. Either the piece wasn't in our price range, was made of MDF, or had damage that is far out of my ability to remedy. 

I made a Facebook post bemoaning my struggle to find anything worthwhile... and that's how the dresser of my dreams came into my life. A fellow Marine wife commented to tell me she had a solid wood dresser she was selling for $40. She texted me a picture.

I could see the potential. And for $40, I couldn't resist. Of course I talked it over with hubs, showed him the picture, and we agreed. Where we wanted to put this, a Wal-Mart card table sat, with a lamp and our microwave on it, to save counter space. It did this fun thing where every time you opened or closed the microwave, the whole table shook and swayed. Love living with that level of class...

Well no more!

They delivered it to us that night and immediately I set it up exactly where I planned on putting it when the project was done. 

I was already swooning. So much more kitchen space... so many storage options... opening and closing the microwave no longer caused a small earthquake... HEAVEN! 

It's the little things, y'all.

So I pondered and Pinterested and Googled all night to get ideas on what I wanted to do, when finally, I came across this:

Dresser/buffet with tutorial

Immediately, I knew I had found my inspiration.

The next day, I gathered all my accumulated Pinterest tips, and we headed to Lowes to get everything. 

The Zinsser is an amazing product. It can be used on anything... real wood, laminate, painted wood, anything. I got a gallon because I'm going to be using it for several projects. They also sell a spray version that may have worked better for the drawer faces, but you live and learn. 

To get the finish off the top of the dresser, we caved and got a cheap little finishing sander. 

As you can tell, it's been used and was well worth the 30 bucks. What would have taken DAYS to do took only a couple hours. 

The further we progressed, the more excited we were!

As you can see in the above picture, the top was pretty dark. Darker than I had planned... harumph. And it wasn't drying... so I read the directions again. We apparently missed the step where you wipe off all the excess. Oops. So when that was done, I was much more pleased.

I had to explain to my husband that even though, yes, the primer was white, we still had to actually paint it white... after that was done, I poly'd the top and it brought out the wood grain beautifully. Then, I started adding final touches!

My amazing husband got me this Laura Ashely self-adhesive shelf liner for Christmas. The man knows me, and he knows what makes me happy... what can I say? Maybe some girls would flip about getting something like that for Christmas but I've been shelf lining anything that sits still long enough, because I'm so in love with the pattern. 

I got lazy and decided not to do the back panel. My dresser, my rules. 

And once the top three drawers had been lined, and all the drawers had their respective hardware returned to them....

TADA!!!

Love, love, love... I'm in love. Swooning. 

And here's how it looks in the kitchen...

The Michael Kors purse ads that awesome touch of class, doesn't it? ;) 

We are so pleased with how it turned out, and so very proud of ourselves. 

So as far as my photography business idea goes, it's going to be put on the back burner. I turned my camera on the other day and got a "Err" message. Oh, fun. This happened about a year ago and my dad, saint that he is, paid to have it fixed for me. I'm nervous about turning my baby over to just anyone in this area to fix... so I'm at a stand still right now. I don't want to pay more than it's worth, but I don't want my first and favorite camera to sit unused. Decisions, decisions. 

On the upside, I have been applying to places like a woman on fire. I don't know why I say "upside," because after countless applications, I finally heard back from an actual person today. Hopefully they'll call me in for an interview in mid February. It's a news assistant position for a newspaper in a bigger city 45 minutes away. I'm crossing my fingers! 

Until I land a job, I'm probably going to be distracting myself with furniture projects. I'm already underway with fixing up my old desk. This piece, I plan to sell. It has been interesting because it's all laminate, so I was able to see just how well the Zinsser worked on a different surface. So far, so good. When I complete that project, I'll write up a post like this one. 

For now, I'm calling it a night!