Dress up Your Dresser!

I am always on Pinterest looking for cute ideas and one of the new, trendy things I have seen a lot of lately is redoing old furniture. So, I decided to try it out. A month ago, our neighbors were moving and left a dresser out by the curb for the trash. So William and I walked over, picked it up and brought it home. Here was my step-by-step process from making something old and flat-out gross into something lovely....and worth money:)

Here is the before picture:

I know, right? Pretty ugly! And in really bad shape. 

Step 1: Take out all of the drawers and see what we are working with. 

Step 3: Sand it

Step 4: Sand it

Step 5: Sand it

Haha, okay seriously though....you need to sand it down so it is smooth. I took a lot of time on this step because it is really important. 

Now, I wanted to make it more difficult and take out the bottom set of drawers and make it a shelf with cute baskets. But if you notice, there is no bottom shelf- it is just the ground. So I needed to add a shelf. This is where my dad came in handy. He was visiting from Florida and went to Lowes with me to get a piece of plywood and helped me cut it down to the right size with a saw. 

Step 6: Knock out that middle piece of wood because I was using the bottom as a shelf for baskets, we didn't need the wood there. So I knocked it out...actually my dad did. 

He used a hammer to knock it, but the saw made it a cleaner cut.

Step 7: Hammer the wood on the bottom shelf. 

Step 8: Use primer to coat the dresser with. You want to do this before you put any of the paint color that you are using down. 

Step 9: Paint the dresser the color you have chosen. I did two coats. Don't forget to sand and paint your drawers as well. For a fun look, you can do an accent color on the drawers.....I almost did that but ended up really liking the gray color I went with and did that for the whole dresser. 

Step 10: Add a sealer paint

Step 11: Add new knobs to the drawers. This will dress it up a lot and make it look brand new! 

Step 12: Be a super irresponsible mom and let your daughter play in it before you add the drawers.

 Step 13: Pick out baskets that are the size you need (make sure you take measurements to the store...we guessed and got baskets that were too tall, and had to go back....learn from my mistakes!) 

Step 14: Add decorations! 

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL!?!?! I love it so much! Here is the before and after shot:

I hope you have enjoyed this and have been inspired! Have a great time making junk into awesome pieces for your house!