About 9 months ago I picked up this dresser from Craigslist.
The shape had the perfect lines I was looking for but the top was really a mess.
So I covered it with a pashmina while figuring out what to do with it. You can see it covered in these pictures from my post on making drapes with the bottom of a cake stand.
Well I’ve made some changes to the master bedroom since then, and I wanted this dresser to pull together colors that balanced the wood tones of the bed with the white of the bedding and nightstands.
Then I opened the West Elm catalog and saw this.
I started thinking that the wood and white combination was pretty and could give the mid century piece a fresh and modern look. So, thanks to my parents who came down one Saturday I was able to get some time in to renovate my dresser. Dad and I practically sanded our fingertips off while Mom kept the kids busy.
(I don’t know why these pictures are showing up sideways!)
The top, sides and drawer fronts are made of a wood veneer so we couldn’t sand as deeply on those areas as we did on the base of the piece. The footer we were able to sand to the bare wood.
Once the sanding was complete we stained the drawer fronts using Minwax’s Dark Walnut stain.
I replaced the knobs on the drawers with new ones from Lowe’s that cost a few dollars each. They are minimal and go with the sleek horizontal lines of the dresser. The old drawer pulls had two screws in each one so I had to use stainable wood filler to fill in the holes and even though the didn’t take the stain exactly as evenly as the wood around them you can only tell if you look really closely.
While the drawers were drying I painted the outer shell of the piece white. I had leftover white paint from a big deck painting project earlier in the year (that I have yet to blog about!) so I didn’t have to buy paint. The paint is Sherwin Williams’ Duration Exterior Latex Acrylic paint in Extra White Gloss. I figure if this paint is made to withstand harsh outdoor environments it will last forever in my bedroom.
When it was all said and done, this was my upcycled Mid Century Modern dresser!
It’s my favorite dresser makeover yet. 
