Kitchen Buffet to Dresser
As a 22 year old college student, having no job back in April, I didn’t have much money in the budget to furnish my apartment I was about to move into. Thankfully, I was gifted with a lot of furniture. Ugly furniture I should say (sorry to my family!). The furniture was very dark, outdated, not my style, or all of the above, thus my passion for refurbishing was born. I love building custom creations with Rogan to save on money, but refurbishing is my one true love in all of this. My very first piece, and longest, was my bedroom dresser.
This “dresser” actually started out as a kitchen buffet that was handed down to us from a family friend. My mom and dad have had it for years, using it more as a dresser wherever it was needed. Fo a while we took the top half off that had glass cabinets to showcase dishware and simply used the bottom as a dresser in my room. It then moved around the house, and finally to the garage for a while, because we didn’t need it anymore. Then move in time came around for me and it was time to put it back to use.
The dresser’s original color was black with silver square knows and drawer pulls. It had a few scratches from being old and used on the top and sides, but otherwise it was still a nice piece. As much as I love the color black in my decor style, I didn’t want to have a large black dresser as one of the focal points in my room. My room already has tan walls and dark carpet that I can’t change, so I started brainstorming what to do with the dresser to make it more “me” to say the least.
I decided to paint the dresser, because most of it was made out of particle board, so staining was out. I had a color scheme for my room going that I found inspiration in from my Pinterest of course. Yellows, oranges/peaches, and greens with black and ebony wood to accent the bright colors. I chose to paint the dresser a green color to brighten the room without being a blinding color like yellow. After painting swatching for a couple days I decided to go with the color Emerald Shore by Sherman Williams at Lowes with a satin finish.
Sanding down the dresser body, cabinets and drawers took about a week total working on it everyday. It is a larger piece, and black with a glossy finish takes time to sand down even with an orbital sander. After finally striping as much paint as possible off, I cleaned it and got to painting. The painting took about two weeks to do in total. Rogan and I were working on other projects in the process, so in reality, the paint didn’t get finished for about a month. Putting three coats of paint on every piece was a lot longer of a process than I had anticipated.
To add to the long process, I decided to make a statement with the drawers, as if the color weren’t enough. The white walls with black stripes were such a huge quarantine trend at the time that I had to have it in my room somewhere. It was on my Tik Tok, Instagram, Pinterest, you name it!
I painted the inside of the drawers white with paint that I had, and used a 1 1/2″ sponge to freehand the black lines. While nobody can see it besides me, and my clothes cover up most of the drawer, I felt it really added some character to it and made it a bit trendier.
The gold cabinet and drawer knobs were a no brainer for me that I found at Lowe’s for $3.36 a piece. Looking back now, had I done some more research, I could have found them at a lower price elsewhere. I finally finished off the dresser with a few coats of a polyurethane to prevent any chips or damages to it. My dresser turned out perfect for me, and fits my room aesthetic perfectly. I loved the way it turned out so much, that I based my coffee table off of it. Check it out in the Refurbished section!
