Pine dresser...all grown up!

I have to begin by saying how excited I was to tackle this project, and how ecstatic I am with the results!

In case you forgot, here was the dresser before:

Here's how I breathed new life into it:

First things first, I got rid of the horrible hardware. The drawer pulls I bought ended up being wider than the original pulls, so I filled the holes in the drawer fronts with wood filler and let it dry over night. Bright and early the next morning, I started by roughing up the entire surface of the dresser and drawers with my trusty palm sander. After wiping down the dresser with a tack cloth to get rid of all the dust, I gave it a quick coat of primer and let it dry for 4 hours.

Now I was ready for my first coat of paint, Behr Beluga. I decided to paint just the areas that I would distress later, mostly because I'm lazy! This is the colour that will show through after I distress the piece. I let this coat dry overnight.

Next, I did my top coat, something I whipped up from 2 different colours, Benjamin Moore Palace White and Frostine. I let this coat dry for about 48 hours.

Now the fun (and nerve wracking) part. I took my sanding blocks and lightly scuffed the top coat off in areas that would naturally get more wear and tear. I started with a heavy grit block, and then cleaned it up with a lighter grit block. At first, I was freaking out when I got a little heavy handed and went through to the bare wood. Buuuut, when I took a good look at it, I really loved how it looked, a happy accident!

I considered finishing the dresser off with a coat of polyurethane, but, because it's not going to get a ton of use, I decided against it. Anyway, I hope that it gets some more dings and dents in it's new home. Finally, I drilled new holes in the drawer fronts and attached the new hardware.

Here's the finished product! (these photos are a bit dark, I'll try to snap some new ones soon)

Here is the breakdown of costs for this project:
$75 for the dresser
$0 for primer (leftovers from our condo renovations)
$0 for grey paint (leftovers from a project a few years ago)
$0 for cream paint (leftovers from our new home construction)
$3 for sponge roller refills
$2 for sponge brushes
$6 for sanding blocks
$38 for new drawer pulls
Total Cost = $124