Nursery Evolution: The Dresser

Meet the blue dresser:  

We got this dresser off of Craigslist for $50.00!  It is all wood, with dove-tailed joints, and it was spray-painted blue about ten years ago for a little boy's room.

I loved the color, but wanted to dress it up a bit -- maybe just do the drawers and the sides in some bright funkiness.  My first thought was to Modpodge some colorful paper onto each drawer face, sort of like this, or this, or this.  I just couldn't get the male half of the household to agree with me on this craftventure.  Argh....

Well, I could always paint it, right?  Of course we're in the middle of winter here in Minnesota (albeit one that seems pretty mild) and painting outside is a bad idea.  I still had some zero-VOC paint sample pints from picking out the wall color, so I could always use one of those with just a very quick sanding of the drawers and the sides...inside the house.  I figured that wouldn't be so bad for anyone involved, so that's what I did.  And it wasn't bad at all.  I put down cardboard and used that tacky cloth and the dust was minimal.

I went with the lightest of the three gray samples: California Elements "Covered in Platinum" and in keeping with the theme of the room, I continued the stencils onto the dresser:

As you can see, I left the top blue.  It felt a bit more durable than the gray paint and I still like the blue.   I also brought the stencils around to the sides of the dresser:

I left the original hardware, which is not the original original hardware, but the hardware that the previous owners used.  For each handle screw hole there were about three holes drilled into the wood.  I puttied over the holes on the top drawer, but did not do so with the bottom three drawers.  I really wanted to get new hardware (maybe ones in different colors?) and didn't know which holes would be best, but the male half stepped in and nixed the handle idea -- he wanted something simple that would still grow with the Kraken.  You can't really see the extra holes unless you are right on top of the dresser.  Plus I was too eager to paint it and fill it with baby girl clothes!