$6 Dresser

Really early in the summer I took to really liking yard sales. Well, on day The Scout Master and I were out and about checking out a neighborhood sale when we came across this old yucky, dark stained, cracked and beat up old dresser (is that enough adjectives for ya?). It was missing one of the wheels from the bottom and well, it was just in a sad, bad shape. I don't remember what it was marked but The Scout Master talked the guy down to six dollars. We loaded it up in the back of our van and took it home. Sad little thing. We went to the store right away. We had never done this kind of thing before and had just about no clue what we were doing. We bought stripper, paint, sand paper and everything else we could think of and then came home and got to work right away.

Then we found out that stripper (especially the non toxic kind we got) was hard to work with and made a sticky mess all over. Then the project was abandoned for about 2 months or so.....just sitting there taking up The Scout Master's parking spot in the garage. Then we got serious. I started just sanding and scraping. There were these weird edgings on the side and I took those off completely. There were two on each side. I am telling you all of this for two reasons:

1. Because I want you to know that I worked hard and how I did it (it's really a TON easier
then I thought it would be).
2. Because I didn't take a before photo. We were half way through our attempt to strip it when
I thought of it and didn't do it, then I thought of it again when the priming was half way
done. But you can ask anyone who saw the before, it was bad & ugly.

So after scraping, sanding, scraping, sanding, priming, and sanding, priming some more.......I painted it red to go in my kitchen. Then added some new hardware (oiled bronze). So here you have it ladies and gents.......


TaDa.....



Oh, I think the grand total without the stripper was like $40 (because that hard ware is expensive). I still haven't decided what to put on the top. Right now it keeps ending up with papers and junk on it. Does that happen at your house to? Any clean flat surface it a magnet to getting things piled on it? If you have a solution to the multiplying paper problem let me know!!

You may be wondering why I am telling you this....because it is DIY Thursday