Champagne Taste, Beer Budget.

I recently turned 25. Many thoughts, fears, and questions began surfacing over the last few months as my birthday inched closer and closer. Should I buy a dog? Am I too old for skinny jeans? Should I get a comfortable sales job? Why am I still single?

But the question that I chose to focus my immediate attention on was

"Why does my bedroom still look like a dorm room?"

So I did what any confident, manly man would do- I asked my mom to go furniture shopping with me. We shopped for hours... Sure, there were dressers and desks that I absolutely loved- but there's no way in hell I'm paying $2,000+ for something that's not even 100% solid wood! I was devastated. In my mind, I would have an infinite amount of options and would be walking out with a rad dresser for $400 TOPS. Man, was I fooled.

I have an Aunt that is arguably one of the best out there at distressing furniture. You can always catch me roaming their house at family gatherings to see what the latest project she has finished.

We all have the friend, that family member that can find a $10 piece of crap and next thing you know, it looks like it just rolled out of Restoration Hardware - It's so intimidating! I've always wanted to try to do it... I just figured it would turn out looking like another one of my woodworking projects for 4h back when I was 11.

I decided to scroll deep into the archives of Craigslist- in hopes someone would be giving away some amazing piece of furniture. There were a lot of cool options that I came across... but I found this 1950's dresser for sale for $50! The best part is that it's solid wood.

Now- I didn't go into this with the intent of putting any work into the furniture I bought- I just wanted to buy it and that be that. Well, that changed quickly... I bought it that same day, borrowed a friend's truck and brought it back to my apartment. Now What do I do?

At this point, I'd never restored a piece of furniture before. I had to get some sort of a game plan set in place. Creating a list that you can visualize and check off makes these projects so much more manageable!

It's pretty simple once you break it down:

1. Sand Down the entire dresser

2. Condition the wood

3. Stain the wood

4. Paint the drawers

5. Replace the pulls

Did I mention that I live in an apartment? Yeah... I didn't have much of a workspace to help me out here. Oh well- I just used my back patio to do all the sanding, staining & painting. Huge shoutout to Matt, my roommate, for putting up with the noise and the smells.

Sanding only took a few hours, thanks to my orbital sander & the help of Jon Barrell.

You can buy an orbital Sander at your local Pawn shop for about $30. Sand paper is $5.

After buying sandpaper, pre stain conditioner, stain & paint ... I had about $50 in materials. That's not too bad at all.

I'm not going to lie, painting the gradient on the middle drawers took a lot longer than I had anticipated. I was overly confident in my painting abilities - that's for sure. I would get so frustrated with myself over that stupid fade but I couldn't give up!

The last on the list to buy were the pulls. I got mine from Lowe's They were about $6 a piece (It was about $20 after tax for all 3).

All in all, I spent no more that $125 on the Dresser & I only put about 4-5 hours of work into it. I couldn't be more stoked with the outcome. I freaking made this! What!? It still blows my mind every time I look at it.

Don't be afraid to take a challenge! I see dressers like mine sell on etsy and in vintage stores for $3,000 or more. The joke's on them... cause mine was barely over $100. If you need help restoring furniture or have any questions - please, feel free to email me!

Cheers!

Dresser 8 (1 of 1)

Dresser 7 (1 of 1)

Dresser 6 (1 of 1)

Dresser 1 (1 of 1)