Dresser Turned Buffet

Do you ever have anyone come up to you and say, “Hey, I know someone who is giving away some old furniture they no longer want, and since you like to redo furniture, I figured I would ask if you were interested…” Well, I do and my first thought usually is…. hmmm, why would anyone want to get rid of old furniture???? It must obviously not be that nice. But then on occasion they show you a picture like THIS!!!!!!!

I apologize for the poor quality, but this is the only one I have of all the pieces together.

And then you gasp and ask, “Why would ANYONE want to get rid of that?!?!?!?” OMG! I could not believe it, a dresser, 2 nightstands and a mirror for FREE! Deal of the year people! Needless to say, I jumped on the opportunity.

The furniture didn’t look that bad in the picture, but it was pretty banged up. There were a lot of nicks and dents all over the tops and sides. I would have liked to have kept it a wood finish, but I decided to paint the dresser since I am just not that familiar with refinishing wood yet, and it’s not like I paid anything for the piece, nor did it have any sentimental value to me. I didn’t need a dresser, but I thought it would be great as buffet for my breakfast area. Here is the area I wanted to put it. There was a dresser already there (the one I refinished in this post), but I have since moved it to the guest bedroom in our basement. 

We started by filling in all the dents and scratches with wood putty.

As you can see, there were A LOT….

Then, we sanded all over and primed with the following oil-based primer. We used a 4 inch foam roller, I think it works the best for primer.

 Here are the doors and some drawers primed. 

And the dresser primed…

Then I attached the pulls to a diaper box (since we do not lack those around this house).

I primed them with a metal spray primer and then painted them a silver finish (Attaching them to the box was such a great idea! I was able to get really good coverage this way.)

Then I used Glidden’s Smoky Charcoal in a satin finish to paint the dresser, ahem buffet, and topped it off with Polycrylic to protect it since I knew it would get a lot of use.

Here is the finished product!

And here is what it looks like in the space. Much more appropriate I think. This was another super cheap makeover: the dresser was free, the primer and polycrylic I already had from a previous project so the only thing I had to pay for was the paint for the dresser and the pulls. My total came just a little over $20! Can’t beat that!

Since then we added some Ikea shelves we already had.

And we dressed them up with some glasses…

A QUICK CONFESSION:

Since painting this, I’m not sure if I’m completely sold on the color. It looks more blue than I had planned and I think that maybe painting the pulls an oil-rubbed bronze might be a better fit. I’m still debating. Also, one more thing to note, the top has gotten quite a bit of wear and it already has several scuffs on it. I’m almost leaning to painting the top a dark chocolate brown and the rest of the dresser a nice off white color, along with the ORB pulls. I guess that is part of all this DIY stuff, not everything is going to come out exactly how you first expect, but I guess you can always change that, right? What do you think? Your opinions are so welcome!

Your Latina,

Yami