Project Shabby Chic Dresser,

Summer Last year i went out in search of a beautiful Dresser where i can display just a few of my Vintage Tea Cup Trio collection. In a way i was searching for a new project, a furniture piece with character.

So i researched a little more about yards sales and garage sale outlets in London, did a lot of leg work visiting them, in the process i found amazing things- (this tends to distract my initial objectives- which is, finding a dresser). As i continued my search, about to give up, a pre-loved chest drawers caught my attention, i just went over to see and touch as you do, i decided to enter the store to find out what else they’ve got (i was looking for a dresser- what the hell);…. then, hidden behind all the old furniture, i spotted this tired dusty book shelf, with beautiful detailing. I asked the Shop owner if he could kindly move the other pieces of furniture so that i could observe it properly, my heart was racing.

Looks like it had a few owners and each one of them painted a layer of paint over the old one; dresser ended up with at least 4 layers of the stuff, i don’t even think they used the right paint i.e. for wood. The shop owner was offering a throw away price for it and even offered to deliver it.

After the dresser was delivered, i wiped it clean and was ready to set it up, with no intentions of painting it, But then an idea sprang into mind,- i could actually spruce it up a little, maybe decorate it as i did the Picture Frame .

I drew up a plan, went shopping for supplies at my favorite stores:- Here’s what i got

B&Q: Low Odour White Spirit 2ltrs. My previous one ran out and i needed more for future projects i decided to go for the big popa. ;), Plastikote Metallic- Gold colour, Steel Wool

Homebase: Quick Dry Satin Wood, Buttermilk (for wood and Metal), Gold Acrylic enamel paint for crafts, Colron furniture stripper

Wilkinsons: New brushes, Wilko’s own MDF Sealer/primer- it has low odour, its quick dry, can be used on wood.

I started by applying the paint stripper which i had used before on previous projects like the picture frame. Guess what… after leaving it for the recommended hours non of the paint was barging, apart from a little bubbling on small parts the dresser. Colour me Baffled; I applied some more since i did read some where that you need to reapply if there is more than one coat of paint. Went to check it after 3 hours, but nothing had shifted. I even tried using an electric sander, but this didn’t work.

Dresser was a discoloured white, with layers of green paint and more white,
this is how it looked after the first paint stripper.

Went back to my work station & googled more about paint stripping. after a while i found that apparently some old paints are hard to shift, and re-application would do the trick; i had no intentions of buying more furniture stripper- one was almost £10 and i had just used up two so far . To cut the story short, i found this paint stripper called Peel-Away which was amazing for getting rid of old paint quickly and safely especially the dreaded Lead based Paint which is poisonous and was banned in the UK in 1992. Peel away is also very useful when stripping paint from covings or wall decorative molding. There are two type: Peelaway 1 for multi-coats especially lead based and Peelaway 7 best for any paint coating. I ordered samples and tested both on the dresser; the peelaway 1 worked best, stripping off all the layers of paint to bare wood. Marvelous.

Peelaway paste on dresser & Peel away sheets
to cover the past so that it doesn’t dry to fast

I ordered a 5kg tub, which comes with free peel away sheets, to cover the stripper whilst it does its magic, a spatula to apply the it onto furniture and neutralizer.. Two hours later, i begun scrapping off the peelaway which came off with all the layers of paint, leaving just the beautiful bare brown wood. You can imagine how happy i was. Next step was cleaning the stripper off then applying diluted neutralizer. I left it to dry over night then cleaned it some more using some spirit, two hours later on goes the Primer from wilkinsons , it dries clear and cost effective- i used this because i didn’t want any imperfections showing through after painting.

Dresser Ready for Primer and Paint.

Although i bought the dulux satin wood (buttermilk) from Homebase, the test patch dried a cream with shade of green, so i went to Wilko, and found their version of Quick dry satin in magnolia – it was on BOGOF hence cost effective and the test patch dried a delicious cream colour. Just last minute i decided to use a roller instead of a brush; i had used a roller before to paint a wall loved the results plus using a roller halved the painting time. Using the roller to paint the dresser was brilliant, the paint job came out really professional, neat, no brush strokes. 3 coating of paint and it was done. I was very happy with the results.

The After Pictures