Happy Monday, friends! It’s the second installment of Coffee With Chandy! Thanks for tuning in! Aaaaaand cut. hehe This week has been insanely busy for me. I’ve had meetings everyday with new brides, engagement sessions, working on revamping my website, and working on a few other REALLY EXCITING behind the scenes stuff that I will chat about in another post 🙂 But hey – guess what I got to do this weekend? I refurbished a dresser!!!

Daniel & I moved into our new house ohhhh – I’d say about 8 months ago. Well, we have yet to buy a dresser since we have been using our closet for storage since it’s pretty big – but our room just needed something else to take up the space & who would turn down an opportunity to store more junk!? lol  🙂 So, we had been perusing different sites online for the past week…until this past Saturday – Dun Dun Dunnnnn…I walked out into our garage (like I do every other day) and just so happened to notice the SEVEN FOOT armoire that had been collecting dust in the corner. Funny how things just become oblivious to you after a while. I darted back into the house and yelped at the top of my lungs that I just discovered something that was going to blow Daniel’s mind. Hello – we can use the bottom of the armoire for our dresser! It was probably the best idea I had had all day, and let’s face it…I was on cloud nine! (it’s the little things in life that make me happy!) However, I strangely don’t really like wood furniture. This piece was beautiful to start off with!! And anyone would have probably loved it in it’s original state – but, just to make things hard on myself – I just insanely adore white furniture! White anything, really. I love the crisp, clean & sophisticated look it has. My entire office is white with pops of pink & gold. So is our dining room! So, I thought – I can totally just paint this and make it perfect…right? Sounds easy enough. I immediately started looking on Pinterest to find out how to refurbish a piece of furniture.

I have never been a DIY queen – but it’s never too late to start, right? After I found the perfect recipe for this undertaking, I drove to Wal-Mart (we live about an hour from the city – so that was my only option being that I came up with this idea at 9 o’clock at night) and purchased everything I needed for the task. Steel wool, stripper, primer & paint, paint brushes, masks, & latex gloves.

I immediately got to work when I got back home. I didn’t really know what a big task I had ahead of me. The hardest part was stripping the entire thing by hand. Ya’ll – I’m not even kidding…my fingers were numb. NUMB NUMB NUMB! I have never actually used that much elbow grease to clean something in my life! Thankfully, my hubby was there to help me and finally, after what seemed to be ages, we got it all stripped! It took us a good 3 hours to strip the entire thing.

See – look how pretty she is in her original state! Seeing this just gave me an appreciation for well crafted furniture! Just gorgeous.

Next step was to prime it!!! This took  15 minutes or so  – by now, it was already about 1am and I was ready to get it over with so it could dry & I could start painting her in the morning! 

I woke up bright eyed & bushy tailed – so excited to see the transformation! I started painting right away. I put on one coat, let it dry, and then put on another coat of paint. By this time, I had an engagement session that I had to get ready for – so, I headed out for that & by the time I got home last night – it was dry. Yayyyy!

Daniel & I moved it into our bedroom, put on the original handles that came on the dresser, and I put a few nic-nacks on it and called it a night! I love the way it turned out. It was so rewarding seeing the transformation completed. Daniel & I were talking as we were working on it & were thinking about how in 20 years from now, we’ll look at this dresser and remember this moment – being together, jamming out to Pentatonix & having a blast creating something awesome for our first home together 🙂

I still am wanting to buy a big mirror to put above it, maybe some new handles, as well as, a few more things to dress it up with. But all-in-all, I’m super happy with how it turned out! My first refurbished piece of furniture = success! Now, I’m hunting for more things to re-make LOL I will sure to keep you guys posted!!!