{DIY} French Provincial Dresser Makeover - Black and White Paint!

The drawer knobs and pulls are now powdercoated white
(my husband's Dad is a powdercoater- lucky me!)


So I decided to go back in time to the first piece of furniture that I ever refinished.  It's fun to look back and laugh now, but it literally took me 6 months to finish. 

One- because I was renting a house and my Landlord's car was a permanent fixture in the one-car garage.. since I live in Washington, and it rains.. A LOT... I had to wait to work on this in between rain showers.  Okay, okay... so I might have worked on it next to her car at times, too.  I'm not so sure the Landlord would have approved of that.  Muwahahaha :)

Two- because I decided to strip the existing paint off of the dresser.  This takes TIME. 

Okay, so here it was before I did anything to it.  I bought it on Craigslist originally for $100. 

Step 1: I stripped the paint off of the dresser using Citristrip (Paint and Varnish Stripping Gel).  This took a lot of time, but it was great working with the dresser "in the buff."  I'm not sure I'd ever strip paint off of furniture again, unless it's something I want to stain. 

My paint stripping attempt

 

Step 2: Once I got most of the paint off using the stripping gel, I used an orbital sander to get the remaining paint off. 

Before sanding

After sanding

 

Step 3: After sanding, I cleaned off each piece of the furniture with a wet cloth and let dry. I then applied one coat of white paint with a foam brush. 

 



One coat of white paint

 

Step 4: Now that I had the layer of white on that I wanted to show through the next coat, I used a very minimal amount of black paint and brushed it across the drawers and dresser only a couple of times.  I made sure that my strokes were all horizontal. 

 



Step 5: I then applied 2 coats of polyurethane (you can use polyacrylic as well) to the entire piece. 

Step 6: Once the poly set, I put the drawer knobs and pulls back on the dresser.  At first, I spray painted them all white.  After discovering that the new boy I was dating (now the hubs :)) had a powdercoater in the family, I decided to give it a shot.  They turned out REALLY nice in bright white.