UPdating MY old dresser

I’ve been trying to remember WHEN I got this 8 drawer dresser.  I honestly cannot ever remember NOT having it for most of my adulthood.  I do remember that my mom bought it for me at a garage sale; and it was ‘antiqued BLUE’!  (which I LOVED at the time!)  Remember those antiquing kits in the 70’s??

These are the original drawer pulls that it came with.  Always PLANNED on replacing them, just never ‘gotaroundtoit’.  Then when my son was born, I thought I’d pass it down to him and get a NEW dresser for myself.  But that never happened.

So, the blue beast served faithfully until around 1988.  At which time I had purchased my first electric sander and decided it was time for a make-over.

Since I still had it in the back of my mind that this dresser was just a temporary fixture until I could buy REAL furniture; I didn’t want to do anything too time consuming.  Just the sanding off of the old paint took me a week!  Turns out the antiqued blue was it’s ‘second life’, and it had been white in it’s first life.

So by the time I got done sanding, I was ready to be DONE.  I gave it a quick coat of natural Danish oil and called it good.  It was very pretty wood grain, but the oil yellowed a bit over the years.

So, here we are, darn near FORTY years later and I STILL have the dresser.  Can’t imagine getting rid of it now.  Time for a face lift.

A bit of sanding to prep the wood for the new paint.

Some Ralph Lauren soft white paint, more sanding to distress.  New (upcycled!) knobs and she’s ready for another 40 years of service!

Found these knobs at the thrift store.  Fortunately the existing drawer pulls only had ONE screw, so I didn’t have to fill any holes of match preexisting ones with the new knobs of pulls.  Just needed to shabbify the knobs.

Some white spray paint and antique glaze, then a protective clear coat will do for now.

I’m not entirely ‘sold’ on these knobs, but they’ll do until something better comes along.

I’m debating whether or not to add a decorative piece along the bottom to ‘dress it up’ a bit.  I can’t believe took me SO long to do this particular make-over.  We’ll see how long THIS style holds up, eh?!?