Painted Dresser for Little Girl’s Room!

So we made friends with the lady (HI DAWN!) that bought our burnpile buffet… I mean, how could we not when we grew so emotionally attached to a hunk’o’wood? We considered asking for visitation rights, but decided that would be weird.

We were delighted when she contacted us with a commissioned project for her daughter Allie’s room! She has two mismatched dressers that she’d like to coordinate without being too matchy-matchy.

Instead of telling us exactly what to do, Dawn wanted us to use our creative juices. This usually makes me VERY nervous, because everyone has such unique taste in furniture. But when she showed me her daughter’s comforter to use as inspiration… well lets just say I got really happy. It’s goa-geous.

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She did ask the both dressers be painted white as the base color. Today we’re only going to discuss the longer dresser of the two.

We started by removing the drawer fronts (we don’t usually do this, but on this dresser they came off really easy and it saved us a bunch of unnecessary taping). Then we sanded everything down with 100 grit sandpaper. You can use a deglossing solution too if you prefer… the point is to get the surface dull and ready to accept some primer!

And then we primed and painted white!

I had a hard time deciding on a pattern. I kinda knew what I wanted… but not really. So I did some google image searches till I found a few things that I liked, and then sketched out this design onto a transparency using a Sharpie.

Then, you guessed it, I used my overhead projector to project the image onto the dresser!

I just used a regular pencil and lightly traced the image on!

Think of it as a coloring book my friends. Stay in the lines, and you CAN’T go wrong.

I worked on this off and on for a weekend before it was completely done. It’s good to take breaks, because it can get tedious… or stressful if there’s toys and poop flying through the air all around you.

Additionally, some colors had better coverage than others, so I had to do 2-3 coats. That dark purple hated me.

Della helped her daddy put on the hardware.

I love doing projects like this… with bright happy colors.

And I think it’s going to look amazing in Allie’s room with her pretty comforter!

We often get asked where you can buy overhead projectors. Occasionally you’ll see them for sale on craigslist, but your best bet is to call your local library. They often have them on hand and will lend them out for free!

We hope you enjoyed this little transformation as much as we did! Be sure to check out our other projects that we’ve used an overhead projector below!. Happy Monday!