Mariah Dresser Before and After

You can never take enough pictures and that's how I feel about the Mariah dresser. I know I took more pictures of her, but I just can't seem to locate them. Oh well. The ones I do have are post cleaning, so they don't do her justice.

Many of you have asked where I find the furniture pieces that I redo... My most favorite finds often come on trash day. The kids already know the drill on Tuesday and Friday mornings. They have good eyes for Mommy! I have sweet friends who spotted this dresser in their neighborhood (thank you).

At the time, I thought I would just have to re-trash it, but after lots and lots of cleaning, sanitizing, and cursing the gods, I started to see something. Most of the time, I don't know the story behind the furniture piece I am working on. I like to let my mind go as I'm painting and create a prior life for the piece. It's weird, I know, but fun. It had good bones and nice curves- which equals perfection, in my book. This dresser had a shady past with scars to show for it. One of the drawers had "Mariah" carved into it, which gave me a name for my made up story. Of course you can't see it now, but it's there. Underneath all of the pretty and fixins, there's a scar. It made me think about all my scars and stuff that made me who I am. Some pasts are shadier than others. Sometimes things happen to us that we had no control over. Other things we did intentionally at the time, never realizing they'd come back to bite us years later. With all that said, the way God's grace covers all of our imperfections is incredible to me. They're washed away, not just covered up. In that, there is no shame, just an abundance of forgiveness that will forever change us. 

Here is the dresser/buffet before:

 

 

This was my original color choice, English Yellow.

 

It looks like a dull yellow here, which would have been perfect, but in reality it was incredibly bright, even with antiquing wax. Mariah was nearly neon and I knew that wasn't what I wanted, so I decided to give her a coat of Miss Mustard Seed's Lucketts Green milk paint and I am happy with how she turned out.

 

Drum roll...

 

 

 

 

 

And here she is, full of soldiers, cowboys, and princess stuff! I'm loving all the storage space. I can't wait to paint something else in Lucketts Green! Isn't it the most happy color ever?

 

Before & After Buffet

I really love my buffet. I found the little treasure at Habitat for Humanity Restore. If you've never been, I totally recommend going, especially if you're looking at doing a home improvement project for cheap. They have every thing from furniture to doors to tile to appliances- every thing! This dresser was at the very back of the store, where they keep the "on hold" items (so don't miss scouting that room out), but it had been there passed the pick up date, so I was able to purchase it. It was priced at $35, but I talked them down to $25. Steal!

Before

 

 

I really didn't know what I was doing at the time. Now that Miss Mustard Seed has seasoned me, I feel much more confident painting furniture. Her tutorials are so helpful.
 

 

At the time, we were in desperate need of toy storage. We have three children and they have a lot of crap toys, and I was tired of always seeing the toys in random storage places throughout the house, even when they weren't being played with. That's when I decided that some type of dresser or buffet would be perfect. As I've mentioned before, I like to do things on the cheap, so instead of buying milk paint or chalk paint for this buffet, (Ahh...that would've looked so good...) I decided to spend no money at all and just use the flat white paint we had left over from our baseboards. It wasn't ideal, but it was free.

 

Here's what I came up with~

After

~flat white paint~

 

 

I also like to move things around. I think it secretly drives my darling honey crazy. He says he can never find anything. I always tell him, "It's in a better place." Right?

 

And here's it's final resting place. It works here. I did like it in our living room too though...

 

But after looking at the dresser for a while, I realized that it needed something. She takes a beating from the kids, so it didn't stay bright white for long. I needed something to really seal the paint, yet still have that chippy look. So, I lightly sanded again and bought some of Miss Mustard Seed's antiquing wax. Granted, it was my first time using it, but I'm really happy with the aged look I got from it. I think it's just enough.

 

 

 

 

Here's a close up~

 

What do you think?


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