Dresser Dry-Brush DIY

So now that all the awkward, nice-to-meet-you information is over, I get to post about something fun.  The husband and I have moved into three different places the past 3 years. Two of those were apartments, and we are currently renting a house.  Both apartments (especially the first one!) were fairly small, so we didn't have a lot of furniture.  Plus, we were finishing up college and planning a wedding so we didn't have the extra money to spend on nice furniture.  Now, we have a little extra money, but I've convinced Pierce that I want to redo the furniture myself, 'cause I'm all cool like that :)

First on the list:  new dressers.  We have been using one dresser and two of those plastic drawer things that you use in college.  I was dying to have my own dresser, and I'm sure Pierce was too.  I wanted something with good lines that I could utilize.  I came across these two beauties for $210 total:

 I loved the amount of drawers in this one, and the little details like the molding around the top.  This would be Pierce's, I decided.

 I had already started to take the tall chest apart, but look at those drawers.  LOVE.  This would be mine, naturally!

In love I was, so we rented a UHaul pickup and made the 5 mile drive to pick these up.  The nice lady who sold them to us had done a coat of black paint and slightly distressed them.  I didn't want black.  I had in my mind "chocolate."  But, since they were already painted, why not do some kind of treatment on them to let some of the black show through?

I googled and googled and read lots of painting tips and techniques.  I finally settled on the directions from one of my favorite blogs, Design Sponge.  We went to Lowe's and bought a quart of Olympic Premium Chocolate Pudding in Semi-Gloss, along with some good quality brushes and a quart of Minwax Oil-Based Polyacrylic in Semi-Gloss.  I also picked up some new knobs to pick up the future gold tones I hope to have in our room!

Since I'm new at this whole blogging thing, I didn't take a bunch of pictures (plus, clearly my camera is not high quality either).  Basically, I sat in our garage in the nasty heat and followed the instructions I linked to above.  It was pretty soothing because it didn't have to be perfect!  I would recommend from my experience to water down the paint to create a glaze of sorts.  I didn't do that, and I didn't quite get all the contrast I wanted.  I used a rag to blend some areas as well.  The less paint on the brush, the better!!!! Important to remember.  After that coat dried, I followed the instructions on the Minwax and did 2 coats of polyacrylic separated by a quick sanding.  Finally, I threw on the new knobs and ta-daa!  Dressers.  Distressed.  Love.

 

Pierce's done dresser, starting to accumulate stuff on top already :)

Close up of the knobs.  They remind me of knots ($1.23 each, Lowe's).  The drawers were not as distressed as I wanted, but oh well.

My beauty

I tried to keep the details still pretty distressed, to draw attention.  The paint looks darker in person.

Grand Total of this project:  2 dressers ($210) + UHaul truck ($35) + supplies at Lowe's ($70, but included plenty of leftover paint and polyacrylic, 2 paintbrushes that will be used multiple times, wood glue, wood filler, a fine sand block, a rough sand block, 13 knobs) = $305.  Considering I was going to buy 2 new dressers at IKEA for about $600, I'm a happy gal.  Plus, these have character!

Have you ever dry-brushed anything? Do you read craiglist everyday?  In another post, I'll show that we also scored two great chairs from the same lady who sold us the dresser that I'm currently redoing.  She had them laying around in her garage and I said "Can I have these too?" 

Until next time...

*jessica.eae