Bliss on a Budget: Cavins Dresser Redo #1

I was recently given this dresser to redo for my friend's Taylor and Marlena's bedroom.Their bedroom colors are white, gray and yellow. I was a little nervous because I was told this dresser had been in Marlena's family for awhile. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin a possible family heirloom! I thought for a long time about how I wanted to transform this dresser. It was tough because I didn't want it to look too modern, and I felt like that would be easy to do with the colors white gray and yellow. Also, I didn't just want to do white...booooorrrriiinnnggg. So I finally settled on gray.

As you can see, the dresser was beautiful on it's own, and I loved the details on the drawers.

Here it is after I sanded. There is foil wrapped around the slats that the drawers slide on. I covered them so that spray paint wouldn't get on them and the drawers wouldn't slide as smoothly.

Here are the drawers after sanding. (p.s. the thing the drawers are resting on is another piece I will be finishing soon...)

Then I primed the dresser and drawers.

I knew I wanted to make the drawers pop and bring out the pretty details on them but I thought white against the gray might look too modern. So I had a "taupey" shade of gray in a sample size paint can, it was a warmer shade of gray than the body of the dresser would be. I hand painted the drawers without taping anything off! The trick was to use a veeerrryyy small brush and go vveeeeerrryyyy slowly. Here's how they look after hand painting.

Then I spray painted the body of the dresser gray and coated everything with polyurethane.

I also spray painted the knobs that came on the dresser with primer and then a white Epoxy which is used for refrigerators and appliances (I thought it would be more durable on the metal than regular spray paint). And I spray painted the base ring of the knobs in a yellow. I wanted to make sure that there was some little pop of yellow somewhere on the dresser and I think this ended up being the perfect touch.