Baby C's Nursery: DIY Project #2

Andrew and I bought a house last August.  It makes us feel like grown-ups to own our own place.  Funny thing is, the only furniture that we've actually purchased for it is a sofa and recliner for the living room.  We have been super blessed to have all the rest of our furniture either gifted to us or handed down from family members.  Needless to say, baby's room will most likely not be getting a brand-spankin-new-perfectly-matching bedroom set.  And I kinda like it that way.  I want the room to feel warm and homey and a bit quirky.  The dresser that currently is in the nursery is chock-full of the hubby and I's sweatshirts and sweaters and all the other clothes that don't fit in the child-size dressers in our bedroom.  So sorry Baby C...mommy and daddy will most likely be keeping our clothes in there.  But the least I could do was pretty up the dresser to make it more suited for your room!

This dresser was a gift from my parents (when the particle-board, build-it-yourself dresser we got at Walmart finally bit the dust).  At first I wanted to paint it white...but then I thought, why not make it a little more special?

So we chose a pale aqua color that fits the original color scheme (pastel yellow, purple and aqua) of the room.  The first step was to sand the dresser--not to the point where it was completely void of color, just enough to take the shine off and rough it up a bit.  Lucky for me, my dad is a collector of all power tools and I borrowed a small electric hand sander--super easy to use and made my life SO much easier!  It created a lot of dust though....so this job is best done outdoors (or in a very well-ventilated room).  [The grooves in the door were simply sanded by hand with a scrap of sandpaper).

Next I primed it all.  I used Kilz 2 Latex paint (a water based, acrylic) and applied it with a mini-roller to make it extra smooth.  As you can see in the photos, it didn't completely cover up the original finish that was left...but adding the color overtop will do the trick (but if I was really paranoid person I might have put another coat on).  I let this dry for a couple days (24 hours would be sufficient!).

Last comes the fun part!  Slap on the color.  For my perfect shade of "pale aqua" I chose Olympic's "Serendipity" in a satin finish.  Not too shiny, not too matte.  I also used a roller for this part.  

I decided to replace the original brass handles with silver ones--love how they match the sort of 50's vibe of the aqua color.  (Be sure to measure the distance between screws for your handles--this dresser didn't have the standard 3" distance so it was kind of difficult to find handles that fit).  And now we have a sweet little dresser, perfect for Baby C's room!  I still might add a little floral design on the door to make it even more special.  But for now, I'll just give it bit of pizazz by setting a vintage pitcher full of zinnias on top. :)

Until next time,

xo

Jayme

P.S.  The walls are the same color in these photos....weird huh?  It's just the lighting the makes it look like I painted them a darker shade of yellow.