Sheer Serendipity: Bringing new life to an old dresser with hand painted stencil

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Bringing new life to an old dresser with hand painted stencil - Part 1

Hi all! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! My friend gave me a dresser that once belonged to his mother, he didn't have a place for it and he didn't want to throw it out for sentimental reasons. Perfect timing, I needed to find a dresser for my daughter's room, she has one dresser that is always a mess and overflowing with clothes. Since she discovered the joy of shopping for clothes, there is not enough storage for little obsession.

The new/old dresser will work perfectly, except it needed some TLC and needed to be painted to make it flow with the rest of the furniture.

Here is the TLC part... Top drawer needed to be secured with some glue and nails.

The veneer was chipping off, so I removed the veneer and sanded it down.

Lost a little detail in the process, but it's ok!

As I was working on it, the whole veneer on one of the drawers popped off. Easy fix, just put some wood glue and clamped it, was good as new!

Dresser got slightly sanded and primed...

And painted it green to match the room.

Now, for the hard part! I wanted to stencil the drawer fronts with a geometric pattern, except I didn't want a very common pattern. I decided to make my own stencil, must warn you, it is time consuming and a bit frustrating. However, I think I will be happy with the end results.

After drawing numerous failed patterns, I settled on one. I am sure, better yet, I can almost guarantee that there is a better way to make a stencil. But, this is the way impatient me figured it out!

First, I folded a piece of paper in to four quarters and draw quarter of the pattern. As if you were going to cut out snow flakes.

Unfold the paper and it will look like this... Love this pattern! Then, I placed it on a craft foam paper and glue it on for a bit of thickness.

I cut out the pattern. Of course, it would've been easier if I cut it out used the stencil method. But, I never make things too easy on myself, it always has to have an extra step and more time consuming. I wanted it more hand painted look so that is why opted to go this way.

Once foam paper was cut out, I placed the stencil on the drawer and traced the design.

Sorry, little difficult to see...

Painting the stencil with off white paint.

I may add a little more of interest to this, I'll see.

I'll be finished with this dresser soon, I hope you come back to see the end result!

What do you think? Is it okay so far? Would love some input.

Have a great day!

Sherry

Linking this post to: