Frenchie Hearts Freckles: Makeover Results: Dresser and Hutch

I finished this months ago and am just now posting. Ryan and I got this piece and at a local antique store (to see what it looked like before click here). I fell in love with it, but we had no place to put it. Then it hit me, I still didn't have a desk for my craft room. Why not use it as a workspace/storage? Brilliant! I absolutely love the way it turned out.

If you look at the before pictures, you can see that it was a lavender color, yuck. I've just never been a fan of pastels, not even at Easter. So I decided to go with a neutral color, a cream. As I said earlier, I had the brilliant idea to sand and paint in 100 degree weather. I just think of it as dual-purpose: refinishing a piece of furniture and sweating out all of the toxins in my body.

I didn't do any heavy sanding or use a primer before painting. I just wiped off all the dust, then got to work painting every little nook and cranny. Which, as you can see, there are a lot! That's part of what I loved about this piece: all of the curves and grooves. Avoiding paint drips from all of these curves and grooves, however, was a major pain in my derrière. After two coats, I didn't like the sheen of the paint, too shiny. So I did a third coat with a flat paint in a slightly darker color, the first being brighter than I thought.

The last step : sanding the edges to give it that antique/shabby chic look. I thought that being outside, in the open air, and sanding by hand (not a big electric sander) wouldn't warrant goggles or a mask. Wrong. A word to the wise, wear goggles at least. Even if you don't see much dust coming off. Your eyes will thank you later.

You want to sand every edge that would be exposed over time to rubbing. The beauty of it is, it doesn't have to be perfect. You want it to look worn and old. All those imperfections give it character.

The original piece was meant to be a vanity/dresser, so there was a mirror on the left. The mirror was broken, which was partly why we got such a good deal. We took the mirror out and Ryan cut a piece of steel to fit the opening. He spray-painted it with a metallic silver and then sealed it. Now, I have a fantastic magnetic board.

I like to use antique teacup saucers as little catch-alls. I also filled the thrift store frames (from my sister's baby shower) with some of my favorite photos. The ribbon holder below was 50% off at Michael's recently, which made me a happy girl. I was finally able to wrangle up all of my ribbon.

These little ball jars are great for storing all of those card-making details: buttons, brads, etc.

Look at all of that storage! The center cabinets have just one shelf inside. Our plan was to knock the shelf out so that I could pull my chair up to it and set my feet in there. The shelf is proving to be harder to get out than we thought.

How handsome are my great uncles? The youngest one, on the left, lied about his age to become a sailor during WWII. I love hearing his stories. My favorite being the story of how he got the naked lady tattooed on his forearm in Pearl Harbor by a 14-year-old tattoo artist. On the right, my grandparents on their wedding day. These photos are waiting patiently for me to frame them and create the wall of black and whites I've been wanting to do.