Sonia's $25 Goodwill dresser is now white!
Last November, I walked into Goodwill and spied this dresser.
I knew Sonia was needing a dresser, since she no longer shared a room with Zoe, and this one looked easy to sand and paint.
No ornate details, lots of nice, flat surfaces.
Simple designs are so, so much better for rehab projects.
I texted Sonia to get approval, paid the $25, put it into my van, and brought it home.
A minivan is quite a furniture-hauling beast, incidentally. Mine has held many a bed, dresser, and side table...and also a sofa!
Since I bought this in November, Sonia has just used it as-is until now. Winter is too cold for painting outside, and I don't have space indoors to do it.
But once I got finished with Sonia and Zoe's beds, I decided to ride the painting wave and tackle Sonia's dresser right away.
Here's what it looked like before we hauled it outside for sanding.
I sanded everything down with my Bosch orbital sander.
Then Sonia and I primed all the surfaces with white Zinnser primer.
(obviously the top is not primed in the above photo)
I mainly use a tiny roller and small paintbrush for furniture painting.
After one coat of primer, I gently sanded any rough spots and then did two coats of Benjamin Moore Advance paint, which is the same stuff I used on my kitchen cabinets.
After that was all dry, Sonia and I went shopping for hardware.
Unfortunately, the old hardware holes were a really odd size, so I realized we'd have to drill new holes for any other hardware.
Also, one of the drawer slides needed a repair, so I took the drawers over to my dad's house.
Sometimes, you decide you need whiskers. 😉
He fixed the drawer slide for me and made a template for the new drawer holes. Since we picked a cup-shaped pull, the old holes are hidden very nicely.
I had to lie on the floor with my camera in order to take this picture, actually. No one will ever see the old holes.
(By the way, I sold the old pulls for $27!)
To make the drawers slide better, I slid candle wax all over the wooden runners and my goodness, that worked so well.
The drawers slide like a dream now.
So.
Just for review, the original dresser:
And the current dresser:
I really love these bronze cup pulls. They are not at all what I was anticipating we'd choose, but I'm so glad we did!
The dresser matches Sonia's room and her stuff so much better than it did before.
Sonia's spray-painted tea tin looks super cute on the white dresser, doesn't it?
I'm really, really happy with how this dresser turned out.
And the bulk of the work took me only one day; much better than the bed painting!
And now it's onto the other painting projects on my bucket list...
Browse my other furniture painting projects
A white twin bed with drawers
A craigslist pine bed, painted white
Before and afters of kitchen cabinet painting
I turned my pickled oak cabinets white with Benjamin Moore Advance paint.
A duo of Goodwill nightstands
I painted a pair of nightstands from Goodwill to replace our old Ikea nightstands.
Before and afters of a tallboy dresser from Freecycle
This dresser was in really bad shape, but a coat of paint fixed it up very nicely.
A freecycle nightstand
It almost perfectly matches the freecycle dresser!
A freecycle dresser and nightstand
Here's my first foray into white furniture painting.
Twin beds turned white
An unstacked bunkbed set, made fresh with Benjamin Moore Advance paint.
Black Ikea loft bed
I turned a walnut craigslist loft bed black.
Black hand-me-down bed
I fixed a terrible paint job from the past, when I had no idea what I was doing!
Looks great! I just love before and after pics! I also got a tickle at her nail polish cabinet. We have the very same one hanging in our bathroom. Ours contains washcloths and soap.
We've had that cabinet for a while (a Goodwill purchase) and we almost got rid of it this past year. But then Sonia realized it would make a very lovely nail polish holder, so I'm really glad we kept it.
What is it with Bassett furniture and odd size drawer hardware?
I bought a Bassett nightstand for my daughters new apartment to redo. When I took off the two drawer pulls I realized that the top one was 1/2" narrower than the bottom one. I had to order the hardware online to get what I wanted in two different sizes. Knobs 4 Less had exactly what i wanted.
Looks lovely! Unlike the FG household, though, I thoroughly dig the old drawer pulls. If you ever decide they need a good home...
Haha, well, they are listed for sale right now, but if they don't sell, you are welcome to them!
Beautiful job!
That looks fantastic. It really changes the look of the dresser. I just love painted furniture, for some reason. I'm with WilliamB -- I actually liked the old pulls too, but I'm sure the new ones go better with her room. Cleaning up old pulls is not a lot of fun, either.
I've had to fill holes from old pulls before; I like that these just hide the holes. So, so much easier.
The old pulls are not terrible. But I just did not feel like they matched Sonia's style. Also, she prefers pulls that are not the bail style, because the loose handles are kind of noisy.
I've filled holes before too and no matter how hard I try, they never completely disappear. So that's why the cup pulls really appealed to me!
The finished dresser looks like something out of Ethan Allen. Gorgeous, and because it’s old, probably better made.
It is definitely better than most modern cheap furniture. The drawers have dove-tail joints, the bottom panel of the drawers is actually wood, and so on. Certainly an upgrade from something like Ikea.
I agree with you in principle about Ikea, and after an extremely bad experience using ordering from them for a remodel (8 orders! to get one order's worth of materials) I won't buy from them. OTOH my black and brown Ikea dresser has survived 15-20 years and 2-3 moves. Whoda thunk it?
Beautuful! It looks like something you would pay at least $400 for!
The dresser looks amazing ! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Fantastic job and I love the updated pulls! You are giving me ideas. I have some old hope chests belonging to each of my grandmothers and now I want to redo them.
How do you use candle wax to make the drawer slide? Do you actually just rub a candle on there or is this a product you need to buy? My son has my childhood furniture in his room and the drawers really stick, so this candle wax method sounds like something we need.
Yes, I think you just rub a candle over it. Another thing one can use is a bar of soap. I once had a lady tell me to do that with a door that was sticking and it really helped! I just took the bar and rubbed it along the top of the door and voila! It opened and closed so much better!
Yep, that's exactly right. I just ran a candle along the whole wooden runner that the drawer slides on. It was amazing how much it helped.
I tried two different candles and one definitely worked better than the other, so experiment a little!
Thank you both. I will experiment with the candles I have on hand.
Wish more folks would be frugal like this. We were raised this way in the 40s, 50s as kids. I even had a girl scout project where I had to rehab an antique. Still have it....a powder blue embossed wooden and metal trunk...lined with fresh blue and white checked wall paper. Also home ec class we had to rescue something old. I fixed an awful old ornate mirror by painting it tractor green and highlighting its ornamentation with gold paint...ha ha...still have both
Love LOVE!!!
I love that look. I made a platform bed with drawers, painted it white and used cup drawer pulls (brushed nickel though).
I wished I lived near you and we were friends I have so many things I need done like that lol it looks amazing
Gorgeous! Really love your tutorials on painting furniture. That's how I found your blog in the first place!
What a transformation!! Beautiful...good job!!
That looks amazing! Looks very high end! You are an inspiration!
Thank you! I think the pulls really elevate the look.
You got a real deal. The dresser looks fabulous.
Looks great! In the South we call this piece of furniture a chest 'o drawers. If it has a mirror it's a dresser...don't ask why...I don't know.
That's so interesting! I've never heard of there being a distinction between the two. Must be a regional thing.
I grew up in TN, and we called it a bureau!
I grew up in the upper south Kathy, and now live in Florida. We call that a chest of drawers, too, and the dresser had, or should have, a mirror. A dresser was horizontal and a chest of drawers vertical, so to speak.
I love hearing the differences in regions and countries in blogs like these. In this town I've lived in since before my kids were born, we found out one difference when my daughter caught a lot of puzzled looks from friends when she said something about her bedstead (a term she always heard from her dad and me). It seems no one in this little Florida town ever calls it anything but a bed frame. A friend of hers who worked at a furniture store after school piped up and said they got bedroom furniture coming in all the time with cartons marked "bedstead," so the group finally had to admit that she wasn't making that word up.
Mr. FG and I have run into words like this too, even though we both grew up in the same county out east here. My parents are from the midwest, though, so I grew up with some terms that are not common here, but are very common in the midwest!
AMAZING!
My favorite place for hardware is 99Centknobs.com. I always look there first. Alas, they are no longer exclusively 99 cents, but they're still darn cheap. I've done entire three houses with their stuff, plus random other projects, and the quality never disappoints.
Whoops, I hit "Post" too soon. The dresser and the beds look lovely!
I will have to check that out! I've always gone to a brick and mortar store, but if I think ahead a little, I could probably save a lot.
That WAS a nice Arts & Crafts / Craftsman / Stickley/ Mission style dresser. Now, not so much.
Luckily, there are lots more of these out there! I've seen quite a few pop up on Facebook Marketplace and craigslist.
So, there should be enough to satisfy the painters and also the leave-the-piece-alone-ers among us. We all can have the furniture in our homes that makes us happy.
You are just such a nice person, Kristen. Seriously.
Very nice - I love buying all wood furniture at the thrift store and giving it new life. (: I am sure she will enjoy that dresser for years!
You must be too Rose! -that was a nice reply back to Kristen!
Nice transformation and regeneration of an old piece of furniture!!
Thank you!
Beautiful! I've got an old dresser to paint white as well.
What was the colour of the Benjamin paint you used? What was the sheen of the paint - semi-gloss?
Thanks!
I use Benjamin Moore Advance paint in Cloud White, satin sheen.
The satin sheen has still been hard and durable to me, without the super glossy finish of the semi-gloss. I prefer to only use semi-gloss sheens when I'm painting molding and other trim; it just makes for such a glossy piece of furniture.
So, I give the satin sheen a big thumbs up. A little shine but not too much.