Confession, I usually avoid fixing up high boy dressers because they don’t fit in our vehicle, so they’re a pain to get home, but the owner of this piece wanted it gone so fast that… Read More »Vintage High Boy Dresser Makeover Using Benjamin Moore Paint
Check out this latest furniture makeover. The dresser was purchased for a steal at $20 and the drawers actually slide nicely and have rails, so they stay in place. So much potential!
The laminate faux wood finish was in really rough shape, with chips and dents everywhere, but with the right paint and finishing process, it can be saved.
Read More »Before and After: Vintage Laminate Dresser
After a few weeks of procrastination during the holidays, we finally finished this vintage dresser project. It’s come a long way since we first got it. It was cleaned, patched and brought back to life.
Here’s what it looked like before we started working on it, yes at first glance it doesn’t look too bad, but it was scary. It had 1000 spiders in it from being left outside, so that took a while to get it clean and remove the musty smells.
The wood veneer was very dry and chipped in several places, the only area that was in decent shape was the top surface, the legs and the decorative pieces on the drawer fronts.
Luckily we were table to remove the decorative pieces on the drawers, making the painting process much easier and cleaner. The bow tie handles were also removed and cleaned up.
The first test was to find out if the vintage hardware was pure brass or just plated. You can do this with a magnet. If it’s solid brass, the magnet will not stick, unfortunately ours was plated.
Read More »Before and After: Vintage Dresser
I was so eager to makeover this pair of dressers that I plain forgot to take a before photo of the highboy dresser. You’ll just have to visualize that it had the same finish as the matching dresser shown below.
Lets take a moment to talk about the dresser in its before state. It is so bland and lifeless. It’s a mix of 80s peach laminate with mid century legs and hardware. The brass plating was coming off the hardware and the “brass” on the legs was painted on, so that definitely had to go. The laminate was chipping and had some weird sun damage spots. I took a closer look at the drawers and discovered the laminate was placed over top of solid wood. Sadly this was only on the drawers, but it was a very exciting find!
The laminate was so thin, so it was fairly easy to sand off using an electric sander and a heavy grit sand paper. Once the drawers were sanded down, several coats of Danish Oil were applied until they were sealed and the finish was even.
The body of the dresser was sanded and patched because there were several dents and scratches. Once the surface was smooth, I applied a few coats of primer. The final top coat is Benjamin Moore Snowfall White in high gloss Advance.
Here’s the final result of the dresser and matching highboy: