Recycling furniture

When we first moved to Chicago we had very little furniture and when we went to purchase new furniture we discovered we had very little money--- dressers are dang expensive. I went to the thrift stores around the city but they were all highly picked over and overpriced. I didn't have tons of time to rebuild an old dilapidated piece so off to the suburban thrift stores I went.

I love Arlington Retail!! They have great stuff at a reasonable price, I was able to get the piece below for about $100, and it is a quality heavy piece. I look for real wood, fun details, and dove tailed drawers (my dad always said it was a sign of a well built piece).

Benefits of redoing a dresser:

1. Save money
2. Completely personalize the piece to be exactly what you want
3. Give new life to an old piece 
4. It's green- new furniture requires the use of materials and resources, often times the more affordable furniture is not as consciously made.
5. Quality pieces for less than a new lower quality piece

I knew I wanted a calming, earthy and elegant look to our room. The old doors below were some of my inspiration in color combinations. The first door is an old Indian door that now is a part of the Galapagos Safari Camp where we stayed last summer.

This is a door at the Salvaged place next to the Green Project in New Orleans- I can never remember the name of that place.

Who doesn't love Anthropologie knobs? They were my splurge on this piece, I think they ended up being a total of  $112--they had the combination of gold and silver that I wanted.

The paint color is Soothing Spring from the Home Decorators Collection

The  original dresser had this seventies shiny varnish on it so I took out my electric sander, laid down lots of old towels and sanded the shine away. It took awhile and I had to be careful not to sand off any edges or too much, but just enough so that the shine was gone and there was a slight roughness to the dresser.

After sanding I wiped it down with damp rag and prepared the paint supplies.

It took a few hours to paint, I would leave an hour between coats.

Lastly I added the knobs-- We were really pleasedwith our finished dresser. I must give credit to my dad who sat and watched a football game one afternoon and sawed off the excess end of the screw of the knob that is inside the dresser. I need to get a hot glue gun or something to cover just the very tip of the knob, the end of the screw sometimes catches my clothes and has caused a tiny hole or two.