Gray Antique Dresser

 I painted my first antique dresser this past month and I can say I have learned a lot! Reading about something is totally different than when you're faced with a situation. At first I wanted to stain the top because I really like that look.

When I started sanding it there was water damage/mildew that went too deep, so I decided to to remove the veneer on top. Here's what it looked like before.

 I used a technique with an iron and wet rag. I soaked a rag(keeping it pretty wet) and I applied a very hot iron to it . With a putty knife I removed the veneer a section at a time.

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   This whole top took about an hour. As you can see there was a very big spot on the top, so staining would not work.

I fixed the veneeer on the drawers with Bondo (also used for cars) and removed the small trim because some was already missing.

After sanding the entire piece, I decided to use chalk paint again. You can see my first attempt at chalk paint in my post on the drawers turned shelves . I like it because you can skip priming and you don't have the white showing through when you distress.

I mixed my own paint, using some of the wall paint I had left over from painting the room (just added some black). I ran into a little problem, when it dried it looked yellowish. I looked it up and found this happens to older pieces because of the stain used. If you applied  Zinsser Shellac, then painted again the problem is solved. You can also use it to block out smelly furniture (inside drawers).

I distressed it lightly and added some watered down white paint in the crevices that I wanted to pop, then I applied two coats of Rust-oleum  polyurethane in matte finish since it would be in a kids room and needed to be more durable. In the next post I want to show you the head board I built from a foot board and pallet wood (you can see a little sneak peek in the reflection of the mirror).
   Hope to see you soon!