April's DIY project for John and me, was repurposing an old dresser into an entertainment center. I thought for sure that I would have to try to find a cheap dresser at a thrift store or through Craigslist and was keeping my eyes peeled. But then one afternoon on our way to a thrift store, I decided we should stop at Starbucks for a coffee. (Yes I get the irony there!) When we turned around to hit up the Starbucks we just passed, there it was in all it's dirty glory! A solid wood dresser, among heaps of trash, just begging to be brought home.


Unfortunately the photo above is the only BEFORE picture I have. Which is shocking! Me the Queen of taking pics of everything! I mean I even found pics of items in my fridge! WTF?!! So why the heck did I not take a before picture of this? UGH!

You can see the edging on the piece above the bottom drawers and the simple edging under the ledge of the top. After taking all the drawers out and the leftover socks and underwear (GROSS), we removed the existing edging and then we sawed the middle of the top of the middle so we could remove the 2 drawers there and create a space for shelving that we will use for all the entertainment equipment associated with the TV. From there we sanded the whole thing.


While I was busy sanding, John went to work on building out a "box" that we would slide in and use as the open shelving space.



We had to get new hardware since most of the hardware on the dresser was broken. Unfortunately we couldn't find online or otherwise any hardware with the same spacing, so I had to fill the existing holes and drill in new holes for all the drawers. We selected hardware that we felt would work best as an entertainment center.

We stained the top and shelving using Rust-Oleums Dark Walnut stain. We weren't sure if we were going to stain the whole piece or paint it white or get a little crazy and paint it gray. But back in February I had purchased a bunch of Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in various colors and we decided, why not just go for it and paint it using Eaulalie's Sky. John had seen a piece done in this color at a Vintage Market and he fell in love with the color. So much so, we had to stop and ask what she had used to paint the piece, so I knew I had to buy some. I had no idea what we would paint with it, but I knew something would don that color in our house eventually.

Eaulalie's Sky is a blue/green color, almost Tiffany's Blue. But as I mixed it, it kept coming out blue and I was worried. I quickly realized I wasn't mixing the paint thoroughly enough and once I did, the beautiful green tones started to appear. It ended up taking me two coats on most of the dresser, but because the paint was not coating over where I filled the holes on the dresser really well, I ended up with 4 coats on just the drawer fronts. We used Miss Mustard Seed's Hemp Oil to seal the top and her furniture wax on the rest of the dresser. I didn't want any chipping on this piece, so I added her Bonder into the paint as well. We sanded out some pieces once it was done to age it a bit. I still want to go through with some of her antiquing wax to age it a bit more, but for now, I love how it came out!


Total cost for this was less than $100. We bought new edging, hardware and stain and wood to create the center shelving. We also grabbed some staining rags and new paintbrushes. I had the Miss Mustard Seed products already, but included the paint in the total cost. The hemp oil I use regularly instead of furniture wax on many pieces in my house, and the wax I bought and used when I did the Armoire, shelving, and end table that I painted already and still have enough left for at least one more major piece.