Thursday, May 31, 2012

My first dresser


Hello all !! I have been slacking soooo bad ! Bad blogger... My life has been turned upside down for the moment, so its taken me awhile to get used to it all and let things sink in. Phew ! What a month or so I have had ! Anyways, lets get to the point: my dresser !! I have finally finished it (besides for a couple things that no one will see but me) and I'm pretty proud of it. Lets start at the very beginning (I just started singing "The Sound of Music"). We live in an apartment and people are constantly moving in and out. Well, we got new neighbors a while back and when I was coming home one evening, I noticed a lonely little dresser sitting out at trash pick up. I ran back outside with a flashlight and checked it out. It had the cutest legs !! The only downside was it was missing a leg. Like, a dinosaur came and gnawed on it missing. I marched right back inside and told husband that he needed to come out and carry it in. He took one look at the poor thing and walked right back in. Now, you say, what did sweet, calm Susie do ? I carried it in all by myself :)



I completely forgot to take pictures of it before we started sanding, but the poor thing was in some rough condition. I think there had to be at least 3 different colors of paint under the black. Aren't the legs cute though !?



We finally got her all cleaned up ! Took what seems like forever and a lot of sanding. Bleh sanding. I also forgot to take a picture of the no legged-ness. After taking out the drawers though, I found the dead leg ! That made things soooo much easier. Husband took me off to Lowes and got us some wood glue and wood putty.



We stuck the sucker on and stood it up so the wood could dry. After that, he added a ton of putty and let that dry. Then came lots of sanding. Bleh.


Same leg but painted !! Its magical :) Eric also added a bracket in the back to just take some pressure off the glue and putty. Its wonderful :) There were lots of coats of paint. I'm sure my neighbors will be knocking on my door asking for me to paint something beautiful for them any day now :)


Bam ! So beautiful ! I grabbed some new knobs from Hobby Lobby half off and it looks good as new. The top is the part that makes it unique. I had originally planned on modge-podging things from my memory box onto it, but after some thought I didn't want to lose all these things I've saved for years. My second idea was to put letters between Eric and I when he was in Iraq. I actually tried that, but they were written on just regular notebook paper and became a see-through mess. After a girls night (thanks Ang, Car, and Kath !) I went back to Hobby Lobby to hunt out some scrapbook paper. I found a goldmine !! I love all things with script or writing on it. I just die for it, so I found scrapbook paper with old school postcards on it !! I know, I know... I've got crazy luck.





Its just lovely ! I'm so proud of it.


I'm now on the prowl for a tall 6-drawer dresser or armoir. If ya see one waiting for the trash, call me ! Haha. I hope this inspires you ! See what you can do with less than 50 bucks :)