We started this project because we could see the potential of matching these two beauties together and making them into a set. Did we think it would work? No... lol. We never do! We always start with an idea and never know where its going to take us. These two both had some repairs we had to do, thankfully just minor ones, but for being as old as they are, they were in pretty good condition and the bones of them matched in shape perfectly!
We are trying something new with sharing our process of how we refinish our furniture and come up with new designs, so that being said lets jump right in to what we did with these beauties!
First thing we always do is take all the hardware off. This step is very important because you always find built up dirt and debris under them, and that needs to be cleaned to help your paint stick properly.
You can see in the picture here that even though the handles were removed it still looks like they are there! That's years and years of build up. Imagine not cleaning that?? Ewwwww...
Next step is to wash the entire piece. In this case its two. We remove all the drawers and wash down the pieces. Always making sure to do inside and underneath the dresser. You would be surprised the dirt you can find clinging to life under there! Next wash all the drawers inside and out. Some flippers don't do this step until they are done any sanding that needs to be done but through experience we have noticed that if we skip this step its harder to sand. All the oils that are built up over time from polishing and skin oils seems to make sanding harder and we go thought more sandpaper too.
This is the dirt that came off of these pieces! Even if they look clean they never are. Our suggestion is don't miss this step, you will regret it!!
Next step is to sand any areas that need it. Depending on what your design idea's are this can be an easy step or a time consuming step. In this case we brought the drawer fronts back to natural wood and kept the body of the dresser painted. Because we chose to do it that way the body of the pieces were only scuff sanded to ensure the paint will stick. It also saved us some time.
One huge lesson we have also learned along the way is you must prime your pieces if you want the piece to last. Whether you use a spray paint version, oil or water based or shellac, you must do this in your prep work for the piece to be what you want it to be. It's very easy to think "this paint has a primer in it already, so I don't need to take that extra step". Well that is wrong. Taking that extra step seems like doing more than you have to but it really makes a huge difference on how long your pieces will actually last when they are done.
In this case because we know that these type of pieces have a lot of bleed through and because we were doing such a light color we chose to use Shellac. This stuff is stinky! But totally worth using it. We did 2 coats on all the pieces with a light sand in between each coat.
This is what they looked like all prepped, sanded and primed and ready to go! There was such unique detail on the front of the drawers so we used a beautiful metallic dusty rose cream inside the lines to accent them with the Rosewater color we chose to go with. At this point everything was going great! We could see the whole vision coming together and were very pleased.
The next step was finding handles that we could use to match them better and that's where the drama started! Amazon is great for handles and we happened to order some for another project that would look awesome so we put them on the smaller dresser. The tall dresser was a different size and because we went with the wood drawer fronts we couldn't just wood fill the existing holes without you being able to see so we went on the hunt for handles. After weeks of looking we almost gave up and sold them separately. Until we realized we could use some antique style ones that we have collected from different projects that match color wise and see what we think. Even though Ash does not like these older style handles, once we put them on it, it was like they just made sense... Lesson learned that even though you may not like them until you see it you never know! So after weeks of anticipation here is the final result..........
What do you guys think? Did we nail it???
We sure think so! We love how they turned out, and it has inspired us to try and do more sets like this!
Moral of this story is make sure you always do all your prep work to make sure your beautiful pieces last a life time, but also not to give up because even though we wanted to say forget it and sell them separate we tried something we wouldn't usually do and it turned out amazing!
These beauties are available for sale on our website. If you have any interest in custom orders or advice if you are working on your own pieces please reach out to us. We are always available.
Stay Safe and Keep Being Crafty.......
Savvy Fabby Designs
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