An Ugly Roadside Dresser Turned a Lovely Pink Ombre

 A friend of mine needed a dresser for her daughter, so when I found this ugly one in someone's garbage pile, I snatched it up.  It was missing the drawers on the bottom but I thought it could still be functional anyway.  This turned out to be a nightmare dresser!  Some found on the side of the road are gems, this one....well, it is well made but each drawer fit only in it's particular spot, the previous owner had painted over the dark stain so most of that was peeling.

Sometimes I sand my project to prep them for primer and sometimes I use a sanding de-glosser. If I had used the sanding de-glosser on this one, it would have saved me days, DAYS, of work!  

It was all peeling white with black underneath to start with.

Grrrr. The sanding made the finish on the drawers uneven, so I had to revert to scraping off layers of paint and stain.

Cleaning out the inside.

Finally, the four days of peeling paint and stain off the drawer fronts is over and primer is applied.

Another friend had just painted her daughter's room pink and let me use some of her paint since the friend who needed this dresser was hoping for hot pink.

I decided to join the whole ombre movement and just used my kids' red poster paint to tint the light pink to four different colors.

If the dresser had of allowed for the drawer to move to other slots, I would have put the top drawers on the bottom.  But I actually like this - maybe even better than what it could have looked like.  The baskets are from the Dollar Tree. They were red, but I painted them hot pink.  If the family doesn't like the baskets, I thought the bottom could have been used for shoes.  I wonder what other uses there could be for that bottom section....hmmm.

In the end I conquered the dresser!  And it really turned out nicely. But next time, I hope to be a little more observant about what is under any peeling paint.  If it's something oil-based, I'll probably just do a light sanding to get the peeling paint off, and finish of with sanding de-glosser.  It would save days of work!