Chalk Painted Dresser

Do I have a plan to refinish all the furniture we own? Maybe. 

I received this bedroom set as a gift for my eighteenth birthday. It was secondhand then, and wasn't in the best shape, but nine years later, it was time to make it pretty again. I really wanted to sand and restain the top and paint the bottom, but the top is veneer, so I decided to leave that alone and just paint.

I did this on our sixth anniversary. Carson left for a conference that day and upon dropping him off at the airport, I hit the home improvement stores. I didn't think he'd have a problem with the pieces being finished, but he is a lot more conscientious of the time and work (and lets face it, the mess) that these projects take, so I didn't tell him about it. 

Here's my before, with drawers removed. The dresser you can see in the mirror is part of the same set and I almost tackled the two together but decided ultimately that it would be too much all at once. 

I prepped by wiping the piece down and dusting, as well as emptying out all the drawers. 

There's probably a reason for this, but the top always has this filmy cloudy look to it, and every time I wipe it, the cloths and paper towels I use turn brown. I was excited to get rid of the ugliness. 

Here are my supplies, with one exception. That wood putty is completely the wrong thing. The one I bought doesn't dry for some reason, so I had to head back out (grumbling) to get real putty.

No turning back! I bought a big plastic tarp and put it under the dresser and over the end of my bed, since I was painting in my bedroom. One nice and surprising thing about the chalk paint is that there's not really an odor, so painting inside was fine!

I really wanted a stained top and painted bottom to this dresser, but decided to paint it all. 

After three coats (the dark wood needed that many to cover it), I let everything dry with a fan on in the room. It took a very short time for each coat of paint to dry and I think everything was painted and finished in about five hours.

I carefully put the handles back in (some of them had stripped screws so I couldn't remove the pulls and tried my best not to get paint on them). I then gingerly put the drawers back in and called it a night. My room was still a mess (I spent Monday evening sorting through things to give away, keep, and neatly fold back in the drawers), so I slept on the couch.

Not bad for an afternoon though, is it?