Little Gray Table: My Completely Free Dresser Makeover!

You heard that right. Completely free as in it didn't cost me a thing besides a lot of my time. I got this lovely antique dresser off of Craigslist a few months back. It was painted purple and the paint was chipping terribly. I originally put it in my daughters room. She loves purple so I thought it would be perfect. Unfortunately the drawers were super sticky due to many layers of paint so she wasn't able to open them on her own and even I sometimes I had trouble opening them as well.

The Before:

I decided to try my hand at paint stripping. Make sure to follow the directions carefully when using stripper. That stuff is toxic stuff and since I didn't know how old all the layers of paint on this dresser were, I was even extra careful due to lead paint concerns. This process was not an easy one and it was very time consuming. I tend to be impatient so I don't know if I'll ever try it again but at least I can say I've done it!

Once the paint was stripped and everything was sanded, I painted this baby with some grayish blue paint that I already had from another project and used a linen white that I also already had. To make the numbers, I used my silhouette and some vinyl and made a stencil then painted it with black acrilic paint. Finally I sanded it to give it the distressed look and gave it a couple of coats of polyacrylic.