How To Paint Drawer Pulls and a Dresser
How to paint a classic chest of drawers before and after makeover
I have a classic dresser, you probably have one in your family, too. It is a classic hand-me down that keeps getting handed-down one generation to the next. It is not an antique, but so well made even after it takes a licking, it still functions perfectly.
Before this dresser gets handed down once again to my daughter. I am going to tweak it to her specifications and transform it with paint to decorate her college dorm apartment.
She is going to be a junior in college and is moving into a house with 4 of her friends. She needs furniture + we had this + I can paint = DIY INEXPENSIVE TRANSFORMATION TIME. She was not into the brown and brass. I can’t blame her, so I got to work.
How to Paint Drawer Pulls
This is how the brass drawer pulls looked after I cleaned them to prepare for spray painting. You can see the one at the bottom has a bit of silver on it. I tried using Rub N’Buff on that one, but I could not get it into the detail of the pull so I opted to use spray paint.
Here is the desk that was currently in my daughters room at home. She wanted it to match the dresser, so even though it looks pretty nice, I painted it.
I set up the two pieces in my garage, lightly sanded them and put two coats of Oil-Based KILZ on each piece.
Decorative brass pull on desk drawer.
Ready to unload my daughters “stuff” into her house. It has 5 bedrooms and she is in one that is tiny, tiny, tiny, but very bright and cheery.
How to Paint a Dresser
The color of the Valspar paint my daughter picked for the dresser is called, Seafarer.
You will find the process on how I paint furniture by clicking over to this post: How to Paint over Stained or Polyurethane Finished Furniture
I used Rust-Oleum Specialty Metallic Spray Paint in Silver for the drawer pulls. I applied 3 light coats, letting each coat dry thoroughly before spraying on the next coat. They came out so much better than I expected. I just love this brand of spray paint.
It is amazing how modern the pulls look now.
Her desk came out great as well.
Here is the dresser in its new home.
The desk is across the room, which is only about 2 steps away. I found a beach towel at Walmart to cover her IKEA chair with. If you decide to do this make sure you wash the towel first – or you will end up with a butt covered in lint. If you would like to see how I covered the chair you can find in my post: How I Transformed a Not So Pretty Desk Chair.
She was having fun organizing and setting up all of her stuff. I wished I could have stayed longer and helped her more, but I think she has my “decorating” gene and was figuring it out on her own.