Accidental DIY

About a year ago, my uncle asked me if I wanted my great-grandmother’s dresser. My Memaw passed away when I was only about 7 years old. She lived in this incredible Victorian home in Indiana with the most perfect wrap-around porch. It was like something out of a movie. Classic and beautiful. When she passed, the whole family went up to Indiana to go through this gigantic house. I really wish I had been a little older when we did this because she was a collector and kind of a hoarder and actually had a lot of incredible things in her home that I really couldn’t appreciate at the time. 

Anyway, my mom and her brothers picked out a few things of hers that they wanted and the rest of the estate was sold at auction. My uncle definitely got the most of Memaw’s things but never really did anything with any of it (I don’t know what he thought he was going to do with a giant push organ! It sat in his foyer, untouched, for about 13 years). He was getting married last year and cleaning out his house and wanted to get rid of a lot of stuff he wasn’t using that was just taking up space. He offered to give me Memaw’s dresser and I was in need of another dresser so I happily accepted his gracious gift. The dresser was free, which was awesome, but more importantly I was excited about getting the dresser I love anything with a story and feel like it’s important to keep cool things like antique dressers in the family so that the family can love them for years. I like feeling connected to my past and to a great-grandmother I wish I had gotten to know better. 

Cut to mid-October when my uncle came down for a football game. He drove his big truck down from Huntsville and, much to my surprise, brought a lot more of Memaw’s stuff than just a dresser. He gifted me two dressers, two mirrors, and a bed frame. Don’t get me wrong, it was all beautiful furniture and I was excited to have it, but my house is pretty small and the size of the furniture was pretty overwhelming. It’s been a very long process trying to fix everything up and find a home for all of the pieces but I wanted to share with y’all the work I’ve done so far.  

Last year, over Christmas I decided to sand the two dressers and repaint them. The finish on the furniture was is pretty rough shape and there was some water damage, but the lines of both pieces are lovely and wanted to give them both new life. Here are some pictures from the process:

The small dresser before sanding. It has all of its drawers, they just didn’t make it into the picture.

The drawers with their original hardware 

The big dresser. You may not be able to tell from this picture, but this is a very large, very heavy dresser! It’s now in our guest bedroom and is perfect for winter sweater storage.

Safety First!

Midway through sanding the big guy. You can see some of the water damage I had to deal with on the top of the dresser. Sanding was fun but also really tedious. It’s hard to get into all of the nooks and crannies!

 

After the first coat of primer

 

Here is the finished product! I’m really happy with how this turned out! The hardware is the original hardware from the drawer picture. I just spray painted it bronze to spruce it up.

We ended up turning the small dresser into a TV stand with the help of our handy friend Brian. He is a carpenter of sorts and helped me out with the dresser transformation as a wedding present, which was such a thoughtful and special gift.

As for the rest of the furniture, I painted the smaller mirror and gave it to Emmy for her b-day (I thought I had a picture of it but don’t so I’ll have to get one next time I see her). The gigantic mirror still needs to be painted before I can attach it to the big dresser. 

As for the bed, we are storing the footboard and rails at my parent’s house. The headboard is in really good shape so I’m just going to wax it then put it up in the guest room. I’ll add some pictures when I finish the mirror and headboard. Hopefully it won’t take me another year to get all of that done!  

Well folks, that’s all the DIY I have for you now. On a completely unrelated note, if you’re a Netflix subscriber looking for a new TV show to start watching, I’m doing a three part series about some of my favorite shows available on Netflix instant streaming. If you feel so inclined, head on over to Nerd Soup to check it part 1!