Cottage White Dresser Makeover

A tired dresser gets a fresh update with white paint and new hardware

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This post is long overdue! I finished this painted dresser back in late fall, and have actually shared this dresser several times on my Instagram feed. (I share a lot of sneak peeks on Instagram, and little areas of my home that haven't made it to the blog...my stories are more "real life" snippets! I'd love to have you follow me!)

This dresser started life as a very dark and damaged piece that I discovered at a thrift store in Florida. I held off on doing anything to it for about 10 years...simply because I didn't know quite how to tackle it. I really loved the vintage floral decals on it and wanted to try to preserve them (see circled areas below).

So the dresser sat...untouched. The poly on it appeared melted in places, and the whole dresser was losing peeling chunks of veneer. The trim detail around the drawers was missing large pieces as well.

After we finished our sunroom makeover, I realized that the dresser would look amazing in that space, painted white.

I had a brand new HomeRight paint sprayer sitting in my garage, just waiting to make its first appearance!

So with a plan in place, I set out to tackle this dark beast and turn it into a cottage beauty.

This was no easy task! It took several days of prep before the piece was even ready for paint. And, I made a crucial error due to my own laziness and impatience...but read on because I share it all below.

Supplies

• white chalk paint (thinned according to directions on paint sprayer)
• paint sprayer (I used the HomeRight Super Finish Max)
• spray shelter (highly recommended)
• large canvas drop cloth
• hand sander
• coarse grit sandpaper (240 grit)
• DAP plastic wood filler and scraper tool
• my favorite degreaser
• tack cloth
• protective face mask and goggles
• Zinsser oil based primer
• Oxford antique cup pulls and matching knobs

It's a daunting list, I know. And there was a lot of elbow grease involved...but, the reason I'm sharing this project is to show you just what an astounding difference a fresh coat of paint can make, even to a damaged piece. As long as the bones of a piece are good, the rest is really cosmetic.

Repairing and Painting a Damaged Dresser

I started this dresser makeover where you should always start...a good cleaning! I wiped it down with the degreaser and allowed it to dry before moving on.

Rather than try to replace the missing trim pieces, I decided to just paint over it all, but I did need to address the chunks of peeling veneer. After removing all the drawers, I sanded the edges of the peeling veneer to minimize the rough edges and then filled them with the wood filler. 

Once that dried, I sanded it smooth, wiped it down and it was ready for paint....or so I thought...Mr DIY helped me set up the large spray shelter on our back patio.

I followed the directions on the HomeRight Super Finish Max, watering my paint down, and then sprayed the dresser. I love how fast it is!

And this is where I goofed.

I was so eager and impatient to try the paint sprayer that I forgot one very important fact when you are painting old furniture...

...the tannins in dark furniture have a nasty tendency to bleed through!

What are tannins? They're the stains that bleed through many species of dark wood. 

Have you ever painted a piece of furniture, let it dry, and was shocked to see it had turned red or orange or even pink in spots? Those are the tannins bleeding through...and they can be very resistant to paint! You can paint several coats and they'll come right through all of them!

The solution to nixing tannins and the dreaded bleed-through is to seal them.

It's actually pretty simple. I recommend an oil-based primer like the one in the supplies list above because water-based ones just don't work as well for stubborn stains! If you don't want to deal with a messy brush, oil-based primers are available in spray cans!

So clearly I skipped this step and paid the price! Don't do what I did...seal your dark wood piece before you attempt to paint it!

Let's take a little look at what happened on the drawers here. See the top two drawers? How ineffective my white paint was? And this is after two coats!

I ended up having to run out and buy a can of Zinsser oil-based primer and hand brushed it on the entire dresser...two coats! It actually went pretty fast because the chalk paint that I had sprayed on the dresser acted as the primer.

The oil-based primer did an amazing job of covering up the reddish stains and I have seen absolutely no bleed through since! And the dresser looked so good that I actually didn't paint another coat of chalk paint on top, I just left it as is!

So to recap: when you're painting a dark piece of furniture, always apply a spray or brush-on oil based primer first, to block any tannin stains from bleeding through. Then, go ahead and paint your piece. The bonus is that the actually painting will go very quickly and you may even need to use fewer coats of paint!

Now let's take a closer look at the finished dresser in all its white cottage glory!

The white really highlights all the pretty curves of this piece. And even though you can see the bits of trim that are missing, I think it adds to the cottage charm of this very old piece, don't you think?

The vintage-looking hardware in the oil-rubbed bronze is the perfect finish!

I hope that you had a beautiful Easter weekend with family and friends! We had a busy one, I'll be sharing all the details of the flooring that we installed in our living room and sun room either later this week or early next. It made a huge difference!

bringing beauty to the ordinary,

Disclosure: I received a Home Right Super Finish Max paint sprayer and shelter in exchange for this post. As always, all opinions are my own.

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