We’ve been in the process of moving all 3 girls into one room so we can make room in the nursery for the new baby. We are doing everything possible to conserve space because getting a bunk bed, twin bed, AND 3 children’s wardrobes into one room can be a little tricky. Thankfully their room is quite large!! We knew we needed to keep this dresser because it was the largest of the two. I purchased it used 6 years ago for I think $40 and repainted it a few times but the style was very elegant. It matched their old room decor nicely but everything else we were planning to do in the girls room remodel was hitting more of a modern vibe.
I found a style of a fluted dresser online at Pottery Barn for almost $2000 that I loved and figured out a way to transform their old dresser into this style! And I loved the two-tone (wood/white) style so that was what I decided to try with their dresser.
I thought about this project for a few weeks before I finally decided how to make this happen. I would paint the dresser white and then overlay the drawers with some type of wood. I had a few different options for the wood overlay which I’ll explain in detail below.
The first step was to paint the entire dresser a true white. I was previously a creamy white and with their new off white walls, it clashed.
We wanted everything bright and clean so true white was what we chose. When painting, I knew I had plans for the fronts of the drawers so I didn’t bother painting the front, just the edges of the drawers and the dresser frame. I gave it two coats of Sherwin Williams Emerald cabinet paint in semi-gloss and just their standard white color (not tinted).
Once it had the two coats of paint, I added a piece of trim to the bottom to get rid of the scalloped, elegant trim. I caulked and painted that to match. Then the next part was the fun (and tedious!!!) part of this project. I wanted the wood overlay look so my first option was to use pole-wrap to achieve this look. This would’ve been such an easy route but apparently pole-wrap is a hot commodity and I couldn’t find it at any of my local home stores or online. So my next best option was to buy half-dowel trim (semi-circle shaped) and stain, cut and wood glue them on… ONE by ONE!! After finishing one drawer, I immediately regretted this decision because of how tedious it was but was already committed at this point. So I kept going and eventually finished all the fronts. And it looks so soooo good!!!
The half dowel trim pieces are pine and I stained them my favorite stain combination to get a light, natural wood finish. It is :
2) White wash
4) Special walnut stain (very very lightly just to take out the orange)
Once all the trim pieces were installed, I gave it a coat of polyacrylic topcoat and installed these champagne bronze knobs.
It could’ve been finished there and would’ve looked great but because we are trying to maximize the space in the girls room, the bottom middle compartment of their dresser was a door that was somewhat useless and just seems to collect junk. I wanted to make this a large drawer instead for more clothes storage so I built a drawer box and installed new drawer slides. Then, I attached the door front that I finished to the front of the drawer and now we have this huge drawer that actually fits all of Londyn’s clothes!!
I am beyond thrilled with how this turned out!! I started this project when I was 20 weeks pregnant and still dealing with some pretty intense nausea so total, it took me a few weeks longer to complete than if I hadn’t been pregnant! Would I do it again?! Absolutely!! But I just might wait until I wasn’t pregnant to attempt it. 🙂
