Pimp My Dresser



    And now for an actual tutorial/before and after. This is the whole reason I decided to blog- bragging rights.

    Back in June, my friend Julie and her lovely family bought a their first home. She made a plea on Facebook for help moving. A friend will help you move, but a real friend will help you move a body. Since I had back surgery in April, I didn' fit into either of these categories. However, I let her know if she needed help with anything "Martha Stewart-esque", I was her girl.

    She presented me a challenge- transform a very plain dresser into a piece worthy of the entryway in her new home.



Boring Dresser



We batted some ideas back and forth and settled on a Chinousserie-inspired pattern based on this picture:



Chinese Armoire (found on a website that gave my computer a nasty virus)



After searching the internet and saving countless pictures of Chinese, Japanese, and Asian inspired furniture and pictures, I settled on this beautiful Chinese armiore. I was attracted to the cherry blossom and peony patterns. I printed Julie's dresser picture and used colored pencils to draw the design.



Design on paper



I printed out enlarged copies of the elements in the Chinese armiore photo and used them to construct my template for the drawers. After getting the measurements of the drawers from Julie, I taped together printing paper in the right size to for all four drawers. I then used the printed photos to construct the design with reference to my original drawing.



Template on paper



I cut the paper template according to the height of the drawers and used transfer paper to mark the pattern.

Pattern ready to be painted

Let the painting begin!

In the meantime, while I was painting flowers, Julie was sanding away the old finish on the body of the dresser.....



Naked dresser body (he he!)

...and painting it black.



First coat



I finished the drawers and painted on two coats of Polycrylic in semi-gloss.

Finished drawers

I fished everything just in time for Julie's housewarming party. I think we made a pretty good team!

VOILA!

    And that is the story of Julie's dresser. I love this kind of stuff because it proves you don't have to spend a lot of money to have nice things. You just need to look at what you have (or have purchased at a garage sale or thrift store) with an eye to creativity. It may take a little time to do a project like this, but in the end you can have something that means more because YOU did it. If you go to Z Gallerie and buy out their showroom, it will look nice, but you've spent a whole lot of money and it will look like you bought it at Z Gallerie. Where's the fun in that?