Taaa Daaaa! The dresser, revealed!

It's actually been over a week that the dresser has been sitting pretty in the basement, but life has a way of getting away from us, doesn't it? 

A quick recap: Here is the dresser in it's original state:

It's ugly, scratched, smelly, and doesn't work well. I did sort of like the wood detail in the middle drawers, but my daughter was liking the idea of white paint more than restaining them. 

I'll admit, I have a love/dislike thing going on with wood. Not just wood furniture, but also wood floors, wood on the walls, wood on the ceilings. Wood cabinets, etc. Hubby has a love/love affair going on with them, so I'm not allowed to paint much - but the house was built in the 80's, and it all has that sort of orange color cast to it. I love wood, but not the color orange. I'm working on getting some other shades into the house. For example, dark stained wood, which is what we chose for the top of this dresser - that way, I could still be saving some of the real wood, but also not have orange, and have it be something my daughter would love.

So here she is, in her (almost finished) glory! We think she is gorgeous now, a huge improvement over the sad little cabinet we had at the beginning of the summer! 

As you can see, we opted to leave the bling all the same shade of white, instead of going with the second shade. Somehow that still made it look dirty, even though I had decided not to use it as a glaze. I hit the drawer pulls with spray paint - they have a tiny little bit of sparkle to them now, and match the top of the dresser quite nicely.

I admitted above that the dresser is not quite finished - I still have to give her a couple of coats of polycrylic on the top, to ensure that it has a durable finish on it. My daughter plans to use this as a buffet, which means that things will likely end up being put on the top. Also, I want to spray the little feet on the legs with the same color that the drawer pulls are, but that involves moving furniture around so that I can access them better, and taping and papering to ensure that paint only goes where I want it...and I still have 3 months til Christmas! 

So now for a quick peek at what looks like it might be my next project, since it is also a Christmas present for a daughter, but she is moving at the end of October and needs to be able to take it with her - 

Nice details, right? It is different, because it is mdf wood covered in laminate, but I still like the details. I plan to break out my brand new paint sprayer for this one, and use the slightly darker shade of white I didn't use on the first dresser. I believe she will love it!