Chest of Drawers Makeover

To recap, just as we were about to leave the Newbridge Swap Meet last weekend, a car came in to set up a stall and I noticed a chest of drawers on the roof rack.

I’ve been looking for a chest of drawers to hold fat quarters, but with most the drawers are too shallow. When they unpacked, this one looked fairly good. It is just a cheapy pine job, but it was nice and clean and not knocked about. Best of all it was for sale at the princely sum of $10.00.

I was quite excited. Mick not so much. He wanted to leave it there, but I won out. It fit in the back of the car and on the way home I requested we go past the hardware shop, which was a bit out of the way, to have the reply, “Are you going to do anything with it today?” Of course I answered that I was. Mick knows me too well. I have a habit of getting things to do and either not finishing them, or more often than not, not even starting.

We duly stopped at the hardware shop, so I had to make a quick decision as to what I wanted to do with the chest of drawers. I knew I wanted to paint them, but really wanted to have a bit of a think about it. Oh well, the simplest thing would be to paint them in Dulux Clotted Cream, the same colour as all of our architraves. I would change the handles and maybe do a bit of stencilling.

I’ve never painted furniture before. Mick and I have stripped paint off many pieces in the past. I don’t think I could paint a good piece of timber furniture, so this chest ticked all the boxes.

As the weather was quite hot, I was able to get the undercoat and two top coats done on the Sunday afternoon. That’s where it was at until today.

During the week I had found some nice handles and after a hunt around, found a suitable stencil in Spotlight. Not quite what I was after, but it would do. What colour to do the stencil in was the next question. In the end I found a folk art paint called “Peynes Grey”, which is like a charcoal.

This afternoon I bravely did the stencilling. I haven’t done any since the mid 90s. It isn’t perfect, but it will do. Mick had to give me a hand with the handles, as the screws weren’t much good.

The best thing is that it is finished.

I’m quite pleased with the result. Well no, that’s an understatement, I’m actually thrilled to pieces with how it turned out. I just can’t wait to use it.

Now the next phase of the project has to commence. I have to make room for it in the house. That will take much more work. Watch this space.