Finished Nursery Dresser and Tutorial

After some agony, I finally finished the dresser/changing table that will go in my boy/girl nursery. Here's how it all went down.

I sanded the dresser with 220 grade sandpaper. It's laminate wood and I sanded until it looked like it had some rawness and would be able to grip some paint. It didn't ever get as raw as I wanted it to. Laminate wood = lame wood. I really hate that crap.

I used Valspar Gloss Buckeye Brown and Eggshell White paints.

I removed the knobs and painted the whole thing white just to start with a blank slate.

The drawers didn't come out of this dresser. Curses! I won't make that mistake again. It made all the painting so much more frustrating. I had to bend and twist and stand on my head. After painting white, I used blue painter's tape so I could paint brown trim. I also had a hair-brained idea to use the tape as a stencil to paint a thin, brown rectangle on the front of the drawers.

That didn't go so well. The brown bled through and the edges were not so stellar. I really liked the idea, but my execution was pretty pathetic. And I couldn't bear to try and clean it up. Believe me, if you looked close, you'd see tons of fuzziness that would be a nightmare to try to make straight again.

So, I bagged it and painted the whole front brown without any idea as to what I'd do after that. I put on my new knobs and had a good think.

I couldn't deal with paint anymore, so I turned to white card stock and Mod Podge. I measured 6" x 6" squares and used an X-acto knife to cut out the centers.

I poured a puddle of Mod Podge and got out another foam brush.

I Mod Podged the squares on the front of the dresser, just eyeballing where I wanted them to be.

Initially, I thought I'd just do squares around the knobs.

But then I decided to add squares down the middle, too.

Tah-dah!

I am really psyched about how it turned out. I actually like the three squares better than the rectangle idea I was initially going with. It really makes a statement and every time I see it I'm taken aback by how cool it is. In fact just this morning I was in my daughter's bedroom at the lovely hour of 4 a.m. and was shocked by it yet again and had enough brain cells awake to say to myself, "that thing is so freaking cool I can't even stand it." Now isn't this the perfect time to reflect on the life lesson learned here? Sometimes you have to take the long, hard road to get to a better place. Painting projects are not my thing; I don't enjoy them at all. But this one, I'd say, was worth it.

P.S. We still have our GIVEAWAY going on...don't forget to enter.