----> Large Solid Wood Dresser

This post would more accurately/appropriately be titled
"The Dresser That Almost Did Me In"
but that seemed rather long.

The month was March and I found myself visiting DI again.  It might seem like I go there everyday, but I swear, I don't.  My husband was home, it was night-ish and I ran down there really quick to see if they had anything awesome.  You never know unless you go!  I walked out to the "yard" area first, didn't see anything that jumped out at me, and then headed to the dressers and found this.  How could it be almost closing time and this is still here?!  This is what I like to call a DI jackpot.  Solid wood dresser, all drawers work great, forty-five bucks, minor dings, nothing big = amazing.  I hurried and flagged a worker down to have him put my name on it, heaven forbid it be sold out from under me, and went to pay for it. 

I picked it up the next night because it's huge and huge dressers aren't on the list of things a minivan can carry.
I drove around to the back of the store where they put all the big items for pickup and one of the workers tried to tell me someone else had bought the dresser.  Come again?!  Apparently a guy had purchased the dresser earlier in the day but when he came to pick it up, it didn't fit in whatever vehicle he had so he just left it there.  I owe that man a kiss...because now it's mine.

Had I known this would be an almost 5 month project...I would still buy it.  :)  And it was only a 5 month project because I'd get going for awhile, burn out, let it sit, and go back to working on it later...like weeks later.
When I finally finished it my husband looks at me and says,
"Wow, that thing is probably worth three grand now"
because of all the hours I had in it.
Such a man way to look at it.

 Is this not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

 Nice clean drawers
When you string a project out for five months you forget what you have and haven't taken pictures of.
I started to sand the dresser with the idea that I would do a whitewash finish on it so you could see the grain of the wood.  Two hours into sanding half of one side I was regretting that choice but didn't want to quit.  The dresser had three coats of paint on it - baby blue, white and forest green and it was taking forever so I got paint stripper to help with the process. 

This worked like a charm and saved me about a lifetime of sanding.  You just brush it on and let it sit until the paint starts to bubble up and then you start stripping away!

 Here it is starting to lift the paint.  It's so messy when you strip it off but was worth it.  I wore gloves and used a plastic stripping tool - they're pretty cheap.

 This was the one side that I sanded and the rest is bathed in paint stripper.

I think it sat like this in the garage for a good week or two.  I had to mentally recover from all the sanding and stripping.  I just didn't have it in me to tackle this side too.

 Getting closer.  You're probably looking at mid-May here. :)

 I ended up staining the top with a Minwax Stain in Ebony.  It turned out nice and I thought the black top with the rest being whitewashed would look great.  I don't have pictures of the next steps, but I did one of the drawer faces and didn't like the way it looked so I decided to paint the whole thing a cream color.  I know, right?!  I just spent hours days stripping off the paint when I could have just painted over it.  I get it.

Here's where I wanted to poke my eyes out.
I had used wood filler to fill in all the knob holes because I didn't want that many knobs.  One in the middle is what I was going for.  I thought I had sanded them down enough to where they wouldn't be noticeable but once I got the paint on it seemed to accentuate the old knob holes. 

Drawer faces completely painted with 3 coats of paint.
Visible ridges that need sanded.

The brilliant idea of just sanding down the ridges backfired and I ended up with this.

Awesome rivets where you could see my stellar sanding job and the first layers of paint.
SO...out comes the paint stripper again and I sand the whole drawer face down until it's completely flat.
Another few weeks here and there of wanting to scream.
This trial and error crap is really getting old!

One night when my husband was out of town I decided to bust through it and just get it done. 
He about died when he came home and it was finished.

Along the way I had people ask if I was going to sell it and the closer it got to actually being finished I realized that there's no way I could part with the beast. 
So it's in my baby's room filled with his clothes.
And I love it.

If anyone knows where you can buy black screws, DON'T TELL ME.
I went to 4 different places in one night trying to hunt some down and apparently nobody sells them.  Like, nobody.  I was past caring at this point and went with silver screws, telling myself I'd paint the heads black later.  Notice how that never happened.  The silver is growing on me though.  After all - there's silver in the round knobs on the top two drawers so technically they match.  *wink*

Labor of Hate Love:
Minwax Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner on top prior to staining
Stained Top:  Minwax in "Ebony" - 3 coats
Paint:  Honey Milk by Valspar - 3 coats
Hardware:  Hobby Lobby