My newly painted dresser!

My finished dresser!

One of the remaining projects in my Apartment Therapy Spring Cure this year was to paint my dresser. Though my apartment is too small to paint in, I do have a backyard. Finally, this weekend, the rain let up enough to paint it. I picked up a can of Sherwin-Williams Mythical on my way home from jury duty, picked up some sandpaper and primer, dug out my putty knife, and got to work.

The first order of business was removing the heavily chipped paint, the original paint, on the top. I went at it with a putty knife and got most of it off after about an hour, but the rest was pretty stubborn. Fortunately, my fab neighbor, Pat, lent me his power sander, so I sanded the rest down to a fairly even surface.

To give myself some practice painting (the last time I painted furniture was more than 10 years ago, and I did a HORRIBLE job), I put on some primer. In their excellent how-to post, Young House Love recommended oil-based primer underneath latex paint to reduce bubbling. So that’s what I did. I let it dry overnight, then spent Sunday painting three coats of the purple paint.

It took me about two hours to get the chipped paint off and the top sanded down to an even finish.

I was so afraid of putting on too much paint, that I went way too light on the first coat, only a little light on the second coat, then got it almost just right on the third coat. I was particularly careful on the top trim, bottom trip, and detail around the legs, but by the time I got to the second coat, I realized I was missing all the nooks and crannies. I painted over those with some watered-down paint, and that seemed to do the trick.

Today, I let it finish drying outside (it’s been about 22 hours since I put on the last coat), then put it back in my room. I had hoped to salvage the original hardware, but sadly, one of the drawer pulls broke as I removed it. I went to Anthropologie today and picked up a whole new set of replacements.

Everything is back in my dresser, but I’m going to wait until tomorrow to put everything back on top. Although it was really nice to be outside all day yesterday painting, I really, really, really don’t want to accidentally ding it and have to retouch the paint anytime soon. I’m so excited to have this done! It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty darn good for a first attempt!

Resources:

• Young House Love’s excellent tutorial on how to paint furniture.
• Really, really basic tips on things like how to use a paint brush.