Do you ever walk into someone's home and see things and think.."WHAT IN THE WORLD"? Well, I do. All the time. I can't help it, I have been doing it since I was 10. In this case, my friend happened to have purchased on of the most boring dresser's that I have ever seen. Not only did she get it off Craigslist, it happened to be from IKEA. Now don't get me wrong things from IKEA can be great and I have found some interesting pieces off Craigslist, but this, my friends, was just one big blonde mess. Let's not forget to mention that her CHI WAWA, who pee's on me every time I come over, chewed up one of the bottom corners.
It's hot right? My friend who was already spending a fortune on buying all new furniture was going to toss this aside. I told her it could be salvaged not knowing what was in store for me. Sanding, storing it in my garage and best of all, the most ridiculous old lady EVER!!
As you can see from my friends dog and husband I had plenty to do.
The first thing you want to do when sanding faux wood is to be very careful. You can't afford to sand all of it down. Just enough for the paint to soak in. And, you want to leave it enough so when you finish painting you can go back and sand/nick the corners for some added distressing. Sanding the edges of drawers and doors is the easiest way to add that eclectic look to any piece. The more practice you put into refinishing furniture the better you will get!! I painted this with our our favorite Churchill Almond spray paint from Home Depot. It is a very warm almond cream-ish color and when paired with our Minwax stain it gives any piece a very worn, old look. I used a light sanding strip with my handheld sander for about 5-8 minutes on the top and sides. Less time for each drawer and door. Remember, MDF will sand away if you are not careful. All the worn edges were easily sanded down with minimal wear from that damn dog. Did I mention when I was dog sitting that POS took a piss on my pillows. It's taken a long time, but I like that dog. Barely.
The drawers had half moon pulls that were not standard size which made for a very, VERY difficult time finding replacements. Why you ask, because my friend threw them away. I wont go into the how difficult that lady was that we bought all the new pulls from. I wish I had a video of her when she was talking to us. I really do. Tongue hanging out when she went for a drink from the straw, Jerry-curl tight and barely hanging on and she was sweating like a pig. Ugh she was something else.
So, see I still have issues with my ADD!! Ok, so after we sanded, painted, painted some more and stained it, we had an end result of this.
As you can see, I used as much stain as I could to get into all the cracks of the doors. It really does give it that aged look that we were going for. The harder you rub the better outcome you get. I like to put on a lot of stain, let it sit for about 30 seconds and then start rubbing. It smooths it out and the rag picks up all the excess you don't want on. Make sure you use gloves our your pedicure will be ruined. Just ask Amber, I mean my friend. This piece is opposite of the beautiful headboard I posted on one of my previous blogs. It matches my friends husband's night stand. It stayed just like this until we found those knobs from the ridiculous lady in Canton. Every time we walk by their both a migraine starts to form. It takes a hot pretzel and a cold Dr. Pepper to make me feel better!!
As you can see, we went with several different pairs of knobs to give it an eclectic look. I loved this idea, mainly because that old lady didn't have enough of the same for all the drawers and doors. But in the end it turned out well!! The larger drawers match, the 3 smaller drawers match, the 2 drawers underneath match and the deep drawers at the bottom match. We ended up going with pulls for the doors to give the piece some more definition.
So, what do you think????
