Dresser Makeover

I really wish I had a before, before pic to show you so you could see what this dresser looked like when I started. It was a really great dresser, sturdy and well made, but very retro. Not in a good way. I wouldn't say it was ugly, but it was just not pretty. My sister gave it to us though, so it was FREE! Which is always good.
Imagine it with me. It was all the same color as that darker brown in this picture.  That blank middle section was 3 drawers. The lattice pattern on the left drawer is from a plastic, wood look panel that was screwed on top. All 3 of the top drawers had this with no drawer pulls.

Well my daughter needed a desk. So one day I thought this dresser would make a good one. I could remove the middle 3 drawers and cut that bottom section off to make a place for a chair and her feet. I worked on it until I got to cutting off the bottom section. My hubby said that it couldn't be done. :(
So I had him cut some scrap bead board to fit inside and then I painted the whole thing white. I left the drawer handles because I liked them. I then removed the handle-less drawers and replaced them with 2 of the handled ones. It worked well enough as a desk for my little girl, but after a while I wanted to get a real desk for her.  I decided to use this in my sewing room to store crap in, and as a work surface. My original thought was to Mod Podge some pages from an old book onto it. You can see here on the left and side where I started to. I didn't care for it, so I scraped it off. (the old lattice drawer is just there for the before pic)

Then I came across an old dress pattern that I had. I am guessing from the picture on the front that it is from the 70's. Well I decided that it would look really cool Mod Podged to my dresser, and very appropriate for a sewing room. What do you think?

 

For the drawers I decided MP  a red ticking fabric onto the fronts. You can sort of see it in the picture above, on the bottom right corner. I added several layers of MP and did a light sanding between coats with a super fine steel wool.  This made it nice and smooth.

And here is the finished product!

 

I am on the lookout for the perfect basket(s) to put in that gaping, white hole in the middle. I have done some great organization in here too!  See all that messy fabric? I cant wait to show you what I did with it, but that will have to wait for another post.

And here are some before and after pics.

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Thrifty Decor Chick