I love this party link! I think it is especially genius because if you have a piece that you don't want to totally refinish, you might just be able to amp it up with a stencil. but so you know, Kate from Twenty-Six to Life who created this piece did sand and stain the dresser, and I love the way it turned out, check out her post:
When I saw this dresser (forever ago), I knew Anthropologie was just daring someone to DIY something similar. So of course I did tried.
For those of you who just scroll to the after, here it is!
I will be the first to admit that it didn't turn out quite like I had anticipated. It looks very different from my “inspiration piece” and that's largely due to the fact that I used what I already had. I wasn't really willing to go buy a lighter stain, or black paint, or create or buy different stencils. I had the dark stain, white paint, and hammer spray paint for the knobs already. So I used them. I hope none of you mind the differences, but if you do, here's a consolation prize.
And for those of you that like a little tutorial, here's what I did:
1. Of course, like with anything, I sanded. And sanded and sanded and sanded. I hate sanding, but it's a necessary evil. It got rid of that awful orangey hue.
2. Stain. This time I only used one coat. This was were the changes from the anthropologie dresser started. Originally, I meant to get a lighter stain so I could do black numbers, but when the time came I was feeling lazy and cheap wasn't thinking and used a dark stain. C'est la vie. I just switched it up and went with white numbers.
3. Spray. The formerly brassy knobs got new life with hammer black spray paint. It's the same stuff I used on those white dressers I did before.
5. Stencil. I used cheapo stencils centered on each drawer and filled them in with white paint I already had.
I know it's not perfect. My OCD is kicking in looking at these photos and that “3”, but I guess it's all part of the learning process. Maybe in the future I'll rough it up a little and it'll become less noticeable. For $25, I'm going to try to enjoy my new piece of furniture and try not to stress about any imperfections.
for a whole new dresser!
>Wow! Thanks for highlighting my project! 🙂
>I really love how the dresser turned out! You did awesome with the things that you had. I actually like it better than the original one! 🙂
>Well, I think it looks great. Imperfections are like beauty marks.
>I think it's adorable! I just posted about an Anthropolgie inspired shirt. http://homemadeginger.blogspot.com/2010/10/anthropologie-inspired-tee.html
>I love this, I just bought two dressers from Ikea for my sons room… for new dressers @ $29 I couldnt pass them up. I was shopping criagslist faithfully but everything I saw that I liked on craigsist was always gone by the time I got to it 🙁 . But I was itching for something to do in his room! So now I have the dressers and thanks to your tutorial I know what to do with them.. ill be subscribing! Thanx!!