60's Mod Dresser Gets a Facelift

Wow, it's windy here today!  I was loading some things into our walk-in basement, and it was about all I could do to get the truck door open against the wind!  But a cloudy, windy day is a perfect day to show you all a dresser that got a sunny yellow facelift.

I bought this dresser and couldn't figure out what to do with it.  I kept going back and forth between a simple white makeover, doing some fun detailing on the top, or doing something contrasting with the drawers.  I was so confounded that I asked you, my lovely readers, to give me your opinion in another post, found  here.  Thank you to those of you who shared your opinion--I appreciate your input.  It turned out that everyone else had different opinions as well-- no wonder I was so confounded!  What a confusing dresser it is. 

So I sat, and thought, and sat, and thought.  And then the day came when I had to start painting it and get it into the store.  Well, I had decided that I wanted the frame to be white, and I decided that it would be much more time-efficient to make the top a solid white.  I sanded down the surfaces with my orbital sander....

...and started with my white paint, with a little sponge roller!

I wanted to use oil-based paint on this dresser, because I think it lasts longer and cures harder.  But I have had trouble in the past with brush strokes in oil-based finishes, so I thought I would try this little foam roller kit.  (When I was a scenic artist, we called these "Weenie Rollers"!  I love that).  The Weenie Roller kit cost me about $3 or $4 at Menards- it came with two sponge roller heads, the little handle, and the plastic tray.  And did it work?  Absolutely, like a charm!  I did need to be a little careful about the bubbles that come up (rolling on paint just does that) and make sure that they popped and settled.  Other than that, it was a dream.

I did have a little foam brush (again, really inexpensive) to get into cracks and crevices that would have been hard to get into with the roller.

And here is the frame, all whitened up:

Lookin' snazzy already!  Now for the drawers...

And then came a brainstorm. 
Yellow. 
But not just one yellow...
Two Yellows.
On the drawer fronts.
Yes. please.

So I mixed up two yellows, using some oil-based yellow enamel I had leftover from my college years.  I mixed up one buttery light yellow, and one with a little more punch and sunshine added.

And so, here are the drawers.  Again, using the weenie roller that I *love*.

Eee!  This is where I start to get excited and I have to hold myself back so I don't install the hardware while the paint is still drying.  Wait, wait, wait. 

Oh yes, hardware.  I decided to keep the bottom drawer hardware--they were nice, and just needed a little spritz of some silver spray paint.  However, these strange little pulls were on the top two drawers, and I just couldn't get my head around them:

Uhhh...maybe I am just not good at physics, but I do not understand this design.  Someone please explain.  Anyway, regardless of whether or not they may be the best engineered drawer pulls in history...I didn't "get" them and therefore I didn't like them.  (A good way to live, yes?)

So I replaced them with some round pulls, also spray painted to match the other ones.

And so we arrive at the end of our story.  Here is a sunshiny dresser, perfect for a windy day:

So...with the seemingly unlimited possibilities in colors and shades and textures for this dresser...what would you choose?  Dream big, be crazy.  I want to know.



Here's the before and after, just to get you thinkin'...and also because I like to see them side-by-side.















Hope this brightens your day!