How To Paint Furniture: The French Dresser Makeover

I am a huge fan of doing big things on a small budget.
I think you can create something awesome and not have to spend a fortune to do so. It just requires creativity and the willingness to get your hands dirty.  

Here's my favorite thrift store find ever, my bedroom dresser. I scored it for only $50, and completely transformed it with some homemade chalk paint.

I absolutely love the way it turned out. 

This dresser was a total score, and I knew immediately that I could turn it into a piece I would love for a long time.
Here is how it originally looked the day I brought it home.

This thing was a total ugly duckling at first.  And this 'before' pic does it way more justice than it deserves. It was a dirty, smoky, beaten up, rickety old dresser. 

I made Jesse tag along to the thrift store with me. We went to get a pair of end tables, and found this wooden monster while we were there. It was an old thrift store out in the middle of nowhere, and it took us two hours to get there.
You're welcome, husband. 

It took a lot of work to transform this dresser into such a babe, but it was well worth it!

Here's how I did it:

#1. I took out the drawers and removed the handles.

#2. Sanded the whole thing down with my trusty sander.

#3. Coated the whole thing with Kilz Premium Primer.

#4. Painted the drawers & frame with 2 coats of Behr Premium 'Creamy White' that I converted into chalk paint. If you use chalk paint, you can actually skip the sanding and priming part, but I wanted this dresser to be really durable so I did it anyways.

#5. Once the paint was thoroughly dry, I put the drawers back in and screwed in the hardware. Then I finished the whole thing with Minwax Paste Finishing Wax. I highly recommend this stuff. It buffs to a beautiful finish and works well on furniture painted with chalk paint.

I usually change out the hardware when I redo furniture, but the hardware on this piece was pretty, so I just left it alone.

And I'm just in love with the way it turned out. It looks so great in our bedroom.

Here's one of my favorite furniture painting tips: Paint the insides of your drawers. It looks beautiful and it gets rid of any smells or stains.

I'm totally hooked on painting the insides of drawers now. Best upgrade to an old dresser ever! 

And here are just a few pics of the whole room so you can see how well it complements the neutral, airy feel of the room. (Note: These photos have been added to this post later, as this room has been updated since the original dresser makeover.)

This room sure has come a long way since we moved in and I love it!

 You can see in the picture below, that I've recently gotten rid of all the gold accents by spray painting the mirror & lamp silver, and painting the handles black. I loved them all gold, too, but sometimes it's nice to change things up!

The whole room was assembled from thrift store finds. You can see the the entire makeover of this room from day one here. You will NOT believe what this room looked like the day we moved in. 
It's come a long way, baby.

Pssssst.  Want more?

Check out our house tour here!

Want more easy DIY Ideas? Check out my top 10 here.

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