$30.00 Dresser Before and After

Happy Happy Monday. Oh how I dread thee Mondays.... well at least for the first few hours. I'm thinking I have to leave the house a few mins. early today because... Kids go back to school which for me [and everyone else on the road] = more traffic which = fun headache.

Anyways

You remember this $30.00 dresser I snagged at Goodwill? Well I fell in loooove with it's lines and curves and structure and hello - real wood. Need I say more?

It was already pretty decent looking given it's age, with the minor exception of some areas. The top drawer was also missing the handle but that sure isn't enough to deter me away from snatching this baby up.

My plan however was not to paint it. With as much furniture that's painted out there, and don't get me wrong, I love me some painted furniture, the colors are endless. There are just those times when you buy a piece and paint just isn't going to cut it. Paint isn't going to work. I mean technically it could but when I looked at this dresser paint wasn't happening. I don't even think it popped up into my head.

It craved a fresh coat of stain.

{humidity + my camera = not a good combo}

And stain is just what I did. A nice dark walnut. I wanted something darker then what it already was and to flow with the other pieces of wood in the room it was going into.

I did two good coats of stain before I was happy with the shade of walnut it was drying into.

A few hours later she was ready to be put into her new 'home'. I'm not sure what my constant need to refer to furniture as 'she', oh well. I even refer to my car and my motorcycle as 'she' too... Maybe because I have a house full of boys, so inanimate objects fill my void, ha.

If you were wondering where I put the dresser and if you guessed that I had put it in the dining room you guessed right. Here is the space before^

And now after, with the dresser. It's my 'new' buffet table, granted it's a dresser but pffft, still holds all of my paper plates, napkins, utensils, sushi set, small appliances [waffle maker, George Foreman, chopper....etc] and placemats. Does the job pretty good and I still have a few drawers left over with extra space for other things.

Don't mind the lamp. That's the next thing to be 're-done'. I snagged that up for $7.00 when I bought the dresser. I actually kind of like the gold finish to it but... eh, we'll see. As for the shade, it didn't come with one, so for the time being I took the shade from the lamp that was in there previously and just put it on this one. It's all just visual for me right now, trying to decide what color [if any] I will be doing the lamp over in.

Before

 

After

All in all I am so happy with it. I'm glad I went with stain. No way I could cover up all that wood grain. You might have also noticed I kept the same hardware. I loved the handles, they were so detailed and vintage looking that after a good cleaning they went right back on. I'm still not sure what im going to do for the drawer with the missing handle. I ended up moving it to the bottom [the middle section] so it didn't look as noticeable that the drawer was, in fact, missing a handle.

When you buy furniture to refinish, how do you decide on whether to stain it or paint it? Is it one of those things you just know immediately upon seeing it, or after a few test sessions, do you then figure out what direction you will be taking with it?

And don't forget! All week is Blogoversary week here at Little Brick House!!