Mid Century Dresser to Media Console Makeover

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared a furniture makeover on the blog. Come think to think of it, it’s been forever since I’ve actually re-finished a piece of furniture!! I snagged this mid century beauty off a local buy and sell page recently for a whopping $25 with the full intention of converting it into a media console.

I’ve been wanting to tackle a project like this for a while, it was just hard to find the right dresser to do it with! As soon as one comes up on the buy and sell pages, it’s gone. 9 drawer dressers are apparently a popular item in these parts!

Although it was pretty beat up (lets get real, it was a hot mess) it was a solid piece with a ton of potential. At first I thought it was solid wood, but upon further demo and inspection realised it was a mix of press board, veneer and actual wood. I loved the mid century look to it and figured it would be simple enough to repair and makeover.

I took my palm sander to the top and quickly realised I was dealing with way more paint layers then I originally thought. So I pulled out the paint stripper and went to town. There were a couple of coats of maroon and at least 3 coats of white underneath. It was thick and it was stuck good. I stripped the paint off all the sides and 7 of the 9 drawers. After that was done I cleaned off the excess, let it dry off and then went back at it with the palm sander to give it a nice smooth finish all around. During this time I ended up peeling the veneer off the edges as it was already coming off. There were quite a few nicks and scrapes on the top, so I took some wood filler and filled them all out.

It looks worse than it actually was! Knowing that I wanted to use it in the basement for the kids, I wanted to convert a couple of the drawer spaces into open shelving to house their gaming consoles. I did this by removing the two top drawers on the right hand side of the dresser and also removing the track that ran from the front to back. I added in a support along the inside that measured straight with the front support.

Pardon the lack of photo’s for the next bit, but I was all caught up in the creative process of it all to remember to take some pics! I measured out the size of shelf I needed and duplicated it so that I had two. I notched out a section in the back so that when I slid the shelf in, it fit snug to the support that runs from the top to the bottom in the rear. From underneath, I countersunk 2 screw in the front, along the outer inside support and then one through the support running diagonally along the inside to the left. I angled one last screw in the back into the rear support as well. Using the drill and a hole saw, I punched a couple of circles out the back of each shelf in order to run the cables and cords through.

I used a bead of wood filler along the edges of the shelf and then sanded them down to give the shelves a seamless look. 2 coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Grey throughout the whole inside of the dresser gave it a nice clean finished look. At this point I also gave the whole shell of the dresser 3 coats of ASCP in Napoleon Blue (my FAVE) and then started on the drawers.

The 3 larger drawers had these funky handles on them that were sunk into the drawer to short of fitting a piece of wood into it and then trying to make it look seamless, I was stuck with them. If you’ve ever doubted that a can of gold, spray paint can’t fix anything, then doubt no more. I wanted to add a bit of pizzaz to the dresser so gold handles it was! Booyah! The legs also got a coat of gold spray paint to help tie the handles in.

Just a side note, stripping paint off of drawers with a funky design is a colossal pain in the ass and should be avoided if possible, ugh. It was probably the more time-consuming part of the project. 3 coats of paint to the drawers and the whole thing was ready to be sealed up. I strayed from my regular wax and thought I’d try out something new. Our local Home Hardware just started carrying Rustoleum’s Chalked paint line, so I picked up a can of the Protective Top Coat from the line and thought I would give it a try.

This stuff is the bomb. Seriously. You definitely have to get used to it as it is quite thick and wants to dry very quickly, but when it does dry, WOW. It’s pretty awesome. It’s great as a top coat and probably going to be my new go-to. And no they aren’t paying me to say that, I was just that impressed.

But enough chitchat right, want to see the finished product?

Me too.

TADA!!!!! Hot damn, I love it! I will admit, I did have my reservations how the gold and blue and grey would all look together but it turned out great.

I can’t get enough of those drawer handles, they almost seem like big ol’ golden smiley faces don’t they?!!

Now. Time to tackle that mess of cables underneath!

Looking for some more furniture makeovers? Check these out!

Fab $5 Dresser Find

Chalky Finish Sofa Table