Dresser Restoration

A friend I work with asked for me to keep an eye out for a dresser. Well, I found one and can't even tell you how excited I am about it.

DAY 1

It's a four drawer dresser that I'll be replacing the hardware and trying something new. (He wanted pull handles and I couldn't have agreed more, love love love Hobby Lobby's selection. I picked up 8 of these, 2 for each drawer and still need to get black screws). The top drawer is pretty cool, where you see that partition (or whatever you would call that) there's actually a divider inside of the drawer as well. It's the only drawer that's like that and I think it will be handy.

We are painting the entire piece black and he was willing to let me try stenciling! So I ordered a few transparencies from Office Max and the stenciling design will be painted gray! I thought about doing some detailing on the sides of each drawer but haven't made up my mind on that part yet.

Haven't decided exactly which one to go with yet either...I'm leaning towards the tree on the bottom left but I'll see what he prefers.

Also, put wood filler in the old drill holes where the old hardware used to be.

Then since this dresser isn't made of real wood and you can't really sand it, I've used this primer type deal, that reminds me of glue, to ensure that the paint sticks and won't peel off. So I did one coat of that on the dresser and drawers after sanding the woodfiller holes.

DAY 2

I'm getting started on painting today. Here goes the first coat!

Last night I went to go find some smaller black bolts to attach the new handles (one bad thing about Hobby Lobby drawer pulls is that majority of them don't come with hardware to put them on) and Lowe's didn't carry what I needed...so I'll be on the look out for those.

2nd coat of paint done...

Next order of business is figuring out this stencil deal. I thought I had my hands on an overhead projector which didn't end up working out. So maybe some tape and a flashlight will do...
Still need to go on a hunt for bolts also... once the stenciling is done I'll need to put a clear satin finish on the entire piece. A few more days left of work.

Sadly, the tape and flashlight didn't do the trick. Even a really powerful light is just not the same as a projector. So, I just made a super huge template instead. Still a work in progress but here's where I'm at with it so far.

DAY 3

I had some trouble finding black bolts in the length that I needed.

Problem solved.

DAY 4

This dresser is for sure getting the decal painted on it today. I cut out the template yesterday and have been working on the inside pieces this morning. I am so excited to see how it's going to look!

Looks a lot bigger here than it did on the floor huh?

^^ Minor details :)

So the template didn't work as well as I would have hoped...

I just did little sections at a time, and you can see where there was some bleeding with the gray paint...

But at least it's on there now, so I'll have to go back over it and darken the gray and smooth out the edges and all of that. But this gives you the general idea of what it should start looking like.