A Wee Free One

I have been looking for a little dresser to tuck away in J's closet.  I needed some extra storage for all those little things that girls need.  Like headbands, bows, tights, all that good stuff.

I spotted this little piece at the end of someone's driveway.  I did a slow drive by and it looked pretty good.  However, the house owner was sitting on the front porch.  Hmmm, I didn't feel like curbside shopping with an audience but I then thought "what the heck?" so I turned around and stopped.

Up close I could see there was a "free" sign but I still asked the man if he was giving it away, just in case.  It was more than a little awkward loading it up while this guy watched me mess around with taking out the carseats.  It was a good thing I was without the kids so I could flip down my backseat to fit it in.

The top drawer was a little wonky
but a new guide was all it needed to
straighten it out.    I picked up a new at 

Home Depot for a couple bucks.

I switched out the middle handles for these fun butterfly knobs I found at Michaels and used up some more the Benjamin Moore, Waterfall that I used on  J's other dresser.  Although that paint is still not gone so look forward to ANOTHER aqua paint job sometime in the future.

So here she is, saved from her life on the streets.  
Just like in Pretty Woman!

I wish I found dressers on the street EVERY day!!!

linking up with:

The Shabby Creek Cottage Transformation Thursdays

Miss Mustard Seed, Furniture Feature Friday

The Shabby Nest, Frugal Friday

This One's a Keeper

Over the past year I've slooowly been
working on J's room makeover.

It started out as a gender neutral
room but, now that I have two girls,
I'm switching it up.

One big step was switching out this
little red mdf dresser I had in there
for a bigger, solid wood dresser.







I found this dresser on Kijiji for $25. It's a little scary, no?

Silly me thought the bad paint job would be easy to remove since it was doing a good job of that all by itself. Sigh, when will I learn? The very first dresser I stripped was so easy and every one since has been a nightmare. And each time I swear "never again".


After I stripped and sanded (and sanded and sanded) the dresser received a new and improved paint job. The colour is Benjamin Moore, Waterfall in semi-gloss. I just love this colour, it's just so light and airy. I gave the top and drawer fronts some extra protection with a few coats of polycrylic.





The pink, painted wooden knobs had to go and I replaced them with some old, vintage looking knobs I found at the ReStore. I had hoped to find 10 of the same knobs but no luck. I did find 6 of one kind and 4 of another that were all flowers so I got those. The bottom two drawers are bigger than the top three so I'm hoping the difference in knobs/size makes sense.



The knobs got a good scrubbing then primed and sprayed with matte white spray paint. Originally I wanted clear crystal knobs but until Hobby Lobby (and their 50% off coupons) come to Canada, that ain't happening. In the end I really dig the white knobs.



It's nice to keep a piece of furniture for once, I can admire my hard work every time I go in the room. A few more little projects and this room will be finished!


~Ain't no party like a Cassie party~

Flower Bed(ding)

Some of you may remember from last month I posted about a dresser I was going to do for a friend. She wanted it to match the bedding for her little girl's bedroom. Everyone gave lots of great advice on how I should go about painting the dresser inspired by this bedding:



I gave her two different sketches for her to pick from. She picked option B.


Here's what the dresser looked like when I brought it home. Definitely not pretty enough for a little girls room. I took off the hardware, filled in the holes, sanded, primed and painted.


I drew the flowers out on paper and then arranged them on the dresser to make sure I had the scale right.



When I thought it looked good I traced them onto the dresser. After that I just got to work mixing colours with my acrylic paints and painting in the flowers. I tried my best to match the colours exactly to bedding.






I love the way it turned out! I'm bringing it back to her this weekend, I can't wait for her to see it. I hope she loves it!

These ladies really know how to party!

White Waterfall

I saw this dresser at Goodwill and thought the shape was so sweet but it needed a makeover.



It's in such good shape that all it needed was a quick sand before priming and painting. After it was all painted, I wanted to add something to the front like I usually do. But I couldn't decide what to do. I knew this was a girls dresser so I thought of birds or butterflies or flowers but nothing seemed right. I don't think the front of the dresser is the right shape for a painting on the front.



So instead, for some uniqueness, I added a pretty pink damask paper to the insides of the drawers and painted little numbers on the back of the drawers.





This is my first project without my sprayer in a looooong time. To be honest, it was a bit of a struggle for me. The sprayer has spoiled me; it's so quick, it only needs one coat and it's dry in half an hour. I'll definitely have to get used to painting with a brush and a roller again.




Linking with:
Piece of Work Wednesday at Primitive & Proper

Pardon my French.....Provincial

I picked up this dresser on Kijiji for $20. It was originally listed as free one day and then it disappeared. The next day it showed up again for "best offer". I offered $20 and even though they had another offer of $25 they sold it to me since I could pick it up immediately. Yay!



I forgot to take a true before pic, this is after I removed the hardware and sanding. But you know this dresser, the basic off white with a gold line around the drawer fronts.

This was finally the dresser that I went a little bold on. I picked out Para's "Rescue Me" which is a nice, bright aqua. This is the first time I paid full price for a can of paint. It was hard, I'm not gonna lie! I've never worked with Para before but I really liked it. And I swear this paint smelled like Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, it was the weirdest thing!



I primed and painted the hardware with a dark pewter. I wanted to reuse the hardware since I felt nothing else would look right on this style of dresser. Plus, since I paid full price for the paint, costs were getting high on this piece.



I love how it turned out so I'm still deciding on whether or not to keep it for J's room. It's just so cute, there might be a room makeover post in the near future!





Stopping by these awesome parties:

Show and Shell

I found this little dresser on Kijiji. It was advertised as free and was only 10 minutes away. I emailed right away after it posted but, when I heard back from the girl, she upped the price to $10. Uh...okay...I told her I'd still come to check it out and if I liked it I would pay the $10.

When I got there it turned out to be a girl from my mom group. I haven't actually talked to her much but I still felt like I had to buy it since I knew her.

It wasn't in too bad of shape, there's a chunk missing from the corner of one the drawers but that just adds character, right? The knobs had to go, they didn't match and there was one missing. I still had 6 oversized wooden knobs from the ReStore waiting for a 3 drawer dresser.



It didn't need much in terms of preparation so I quickly got to painting. It got a couple coats of the same off-white that I've been working with for a few dressers. That gallon has been lasting forever!

Then it sat...and sat....and sat. I was waiting for inspiration. It was almost exactly the same as the antique dresser I did but it didn't have a mirror.



I realized it's the perfect height for a change table so I went with that idea. I tried to make it bright, fun and gender neutral, I really like the way the colours turned out!

Party on, Wayne

Piece of Work Wednesdays at Primitive & Proper