From the "There's a First Time for Everything" Files: I Refurbish a Dresser!

I find DIY/home remodeling blogs kind of boring.  But hopefully that's just me, because I'm about to tell you all about how I refurbished and old dresser for my home office!

Here's a picture of what the dresser originally looked like.  In the true spirit of "before" pictures, it's a little bit dark and blurry:

First I took all the drawers out and unscrewed the handles.  Then I coated the whole thing with primer:

Next I painted it blue.  The color is Benjamin Moore St. Tropez Bay, #2128-30. 

I wanted to give my dresser sort of a distressed look.  See, with the distressed look, minor flaws look like they were intentional.  It's like, to quote Pee-Wee Herman, "I meant to do that." 

So, to create the distressed look, I sanded down various edges with 100-grit sandpaper.  According to the Interwebs, you are supposed to sand any corner where natural wear and tear might occur, like from people brushing past that corner. 

Next, I went to my least-favorite do-it-yourself home repair conglomerate and purchased new handles for the cabinets:

Then I realized that two of the handles required longer screws than the ones that came with the handles, so I ... got mad.  And then the next day I went to my local Ace hardware, where the super nice lady helped me pick out screws. 

Except, here's the thing: If you need to install two handles, and each handle requires two screws each, you need four screws, not two. 

(And it's not like I spend my days editing documents containing just those types of word problems or anything.) 

But I made do with what I had, and the handles got screwed on, and here's the finished dresser:

Not pictured: weird smeary stain-type thing that happened when child spilled that oil diffuser on top.  Bill said, "Well, you wanted it to look distressed, right?" 

I was, in fact, distressed.  Except, I mean, I meant to do that.