A piece of my childhood...

Kelly here.  Once again!

Okay, so I mentioned cleaning out my garage that left me with ample space to work on a big project. My garage is so clean & organized I am debating moving my bed out there. 

Here it is.  My project.  This was my dresser from my childhood...

 Well, sans the drawers.  And here's the top...

Very 1980-something, right??  My mom has been a dear and held onto these pieces since...oh, let's not date ourselves.  I was about 5 seconds from telling her to just put it on Craigslist when it dawned on me...I had a spot for it!  The perfect spot.  I have been searching high and low for something to put in my dining room.  All along I was thinking "buffet" style.  I was picturing something I could store our dinner/serving dishes in and maybe display a few fun things on top.   All of a sudden I had a vision of how this piece from my childhood could work.

I gave it all a light sanding and thought I could just paint over that.  Nope.  Silly me.  So, I went to the helpful folks in the Home Depot paint department and they pointed me in the right direction.  I picked up an oil-based primer...

This helps so that the grain in the wood does not bleed through the paint.  It worked!  I can't imagine how many coats of paint I would applied without that stuff as my base.  The gal at the Home Depot tinted it for me since the color I was painting over it was so dark.  I also pulled the paneling off the back of the top piece of the dresser before I got started.  Only about 537 staples holding that sucker on.  Yeeeeaaaaa. 

Helpful hint for cleaning up oil-based paints from my days in art classes in college:  A handful of olive oil and about a tablespoon of salt.  Scrub.  Scrub.  Scrub.  Not only does it totally remove the paint, but it leaves your hands soft and pretty.

Primed and ready to paint...

See that sunshine?  About dang time.  The kids were able to play outside while I applied coats.  I was obsessed with painting this.  I love painting.  It's so relaxing for me, but the whole "waiting for paint to dry" biz-nazz...had me bouncing off the walls.  I was so flipping excited to have this thing DONE.  I even woke up at like 6 am one morning, coffee in hand, hauling every lamp we had in the house out to the garage to put on another coat.  Basically, this gal doesn't see 6 am unless the house is on fire and I need to save lives.   

This is what was on my dining room wall before. Very blah.  I do really like the pictures (sorry for the reflections on the glass) and I love my big "E", but I never liked what I had going on there overall.  Plus, I needed more storage in the room.  Like I said, I pictured a buffet under it or something similar.

But, THIS is what sits there now...

I painted it Behr's Bitter Chocolate in a semi-gloss to match the table, chairs and wine rack in the room.  It did require two coats but the paint went on easy and even.  I did have some touch up spots that were hard to see in my garage but showed up in my home.  Just little things that my eyes spotted & made me twitchy.  Even the light still works.  Pretty sure my mom had the same bulb in there that I had as a kid.  Almost an antique, right?

I put our dinner dishes on the shelves and it makes setting the table easy for our oldest (her chore, my sweet gal).  Sure, I'm not displaying fine china, but I do really like my dishes and I think they work well in this spot.  Plus, it freed up and entire cupboard in my kitchen.  Bonus!  I found some new pulls for the drawers on sale and I filled the drawers with my crew's art supplies and the things I like to keep contained in the dining room...like the dreaded Play-Doh & finger paints.  Since my crew likes to paint and color at the table, this worked so well to keep all their fun stuff in one accessible spot.  My huge roll of finger-paint-paper fit perfectly in the bottom drawer.  The kids can just pull it out and tear it off.  Simple.  It looks pretty (in my humble opinion, of course) and it's very functional.  THAT was my goal.  I am SO happy with how it turned out.  Thanks to my mom for holding onto this for me.  Who would have thought my childhood dresser would someday show up in my dining room?  Overall, I think I invested $20 into this project. 

I am debating covering the back panelling that I saved with fabric & reattaching it.  I am thinking a pretty print to match the rest of the room OR do I just leave it open with the exposed wall behind?  That's my only hang-up right now.  Any thoughts??  I am thinking something like this to blend in with my curtains and chair pads...

I really love the 1st and 3rd one.  The open shelves work for me too.  I'm torn.  Thanks for looking!