Ugly Dresser Redone...scroll Work Gone!

Bernice H
by Bernice H
The before ..very not my style! But it was free.
So we took off all the scroll work...hubs said it was challenging but not as hard as he thought it would be. Scroll work gone,below.
We sanded slightly,primed ,painted...now ,something we all need to remember...it is ALWAYS good to NUMBER THE DRAWERS...when you take them out. Are you hearing me? Trying to fit them back in after painting?.....Stressful! putting it politely! Below...hubs trying to find which drawer goes where!
In painting I primed with white,painted top and sides white...then applied a light green to the drawers and quickly dragged some off.


We spent more than I had intended on hardware,but I think it is the jewelry to the pieces.you can't really see the detail,sorry.
Another oops! Taking the scroll work off was not as difficult as we thought....HOWEVER.....( embarrassment here) we did not realize that now the drawers would recede into the dresser,because the scroll work took up some space on the front of the drawers. Ooohhhh. We looked at each other sheepishly. Now what do we do? We just put a couple of small pieces on the front of the dresser in each drawer space..to stop it going further back. By this time we were sick of our oops-es. Closing the drawers was another problem,because we had not numbered them,we had to get the best fit possible by guessing,trial and error. A couple still do not close well,but we are not telling anybody! It looks good,we are pleased for a freebie and 70$ in hardware...two night stands and a 9 drawer dresser much fresher than the old...we are ok with it. And certainly learned a lot!
Scroll work...bye.
Drawer not fitting well,no scrollwork.oohh
Step 12, what did I do next? Collapse! In relief. HOWEVER.. I do find the tops do still stick to some things and i have been keeping things off the top,hoping the paint will harden more. If anyone has suggestions on this I would like to hear them. What is on the dresser now is just for pictures,they will come off a few more days. Oh..a beautiful new mirror also. The other one was a monster.
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  • Bernice H Bernice H on Jul 13, 2016
    It IS a big dust collector ,isn't it? All those nooks and crannies! I cleaned houses for 20 years,so many times I would inwardly shake my head. These people don't even SEE their "treasures" any more...they just want them. So they collect dust. I know this dresser feels good....if you can call it that...in having a facelift!
  • Marlene Greene Marlene Greene on Jul 14, 2016
    would chalk paint have worked better?
  • K Jones K Jones on Aug 19, 2016
    What color of paint did you use? I love it!
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  • Sandra Sandra on Sep 06, 2016
    maybe you could put a piece of wood as a stopper in back of drawer???
    • Bernice H Bernice H on Sep 25, 2016
      Actually hubs put a little piece of wood in the front..good enough for me. But if we do this another time, be sure we will be smarter!
  • Angie Rivera Angie Rivera on Jun 10, 2020

    2020 here, i picked up an old & free dresser with a ton of scrollwork thinking I would paint it, well those all those books & crannies are quite intimidating to think of sanding them. Removing them? Genius. Standstill project will finally move forward. Procrastinator here, but once i start, here i come

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