alice & isla's dresser transformed

A couple of years ago we lucked into a free antique dresser from a friend of my Mother-in-law's.  We always knew that we wanted to eventually paint it and use it in a nursery.  We just weren't exactly pregnant at the time.  So it sat in the garage for a while, then it sat in one of the former guest room's (now nursery).  Every so often I would look at it and hope that eventually we would get to paint it... we just needed to see that positive test first.  So it took about a year longer than we hoped but I was finally able to look at that dresser with some real potential.

Originally we were thinking we would paint it white and then distress it and clear coat it.  Then we bought white cribs and a white leather recliner.  There is a lot of white going on in there.  So off to Uproar Paint and Paper I went.  They are our only local source for Farrow & Ball paint and they have never steered us wrong in the colour department.  We chose one of their new colours from 2011... Cabbage White.  It essentially is white with blue in it.

You may have seen the before... or maybe not... just in case you missed it, here is what we were working with...

and now for the transformation...

We are so happy with the final product!  The colour is great in the room and works very well with Farrow & Ball's Teresa's Green (the wall colour).  Normally I would have contributed more to this type of project (I love to paint)... but this belly just didn't make that feasible so Andrew takes the credit (well most of) for this transformation.

He started out by sanding it down with an electric sander.  He then applied several coats of Kilz Original Spray Primer... not the most environmentally friendly product but we were dealing with several stains including a big area where wax was seeping through.  After priming he hand sanded it to a smooth finish.  He then applied two coats of Cabbage White in the Estate Eggshell finish (which is amazing on woodwork) with a brush (although you can see no brushstrokes since it dries so flat).  He sanded in between coats.  We (this is the part I helped slightly with) then used 320 grit sandpaper to distress parts of the dresser.  To finish he applied one coat of SafeCoat Acrylac which is a non toxic hard clear coat that doesn't yellow.

We love it.  This nursery is finally coming together!