Upcycling New Life into A Chest of Drawers

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Fresh paint? Yes please! We’ve spent so much time at home in the last year, that I feel like I’m finally getting through my to do list. Prints up in the hallway? Done. Replacing our old bedframe? Tick. Giving our dining table a fresh coat of paint? Check! One more thing on my list was replacing the chest of drawers that serves as a sideboard in the lounge. We don’t have a huge amount of space so this one is the perfect size. The problem was it had a huge crack in the top! Still, after some consideration I decided that fixing it was the better option. After all, it’s a beautiful piece that I bought secondhand about 4 or 5 years ago? Now that other corners of the flat are coming together, I decided it was time to upcycle this chest of drawers!

Earlier in the year I worked with Valspar, so I had a heap of paint to be used. The main question was do I paint the whole thing? I wasn’t too sure, because the wood is a lovely color and still in pretty good condition! In the end, I opted to paint just the top, and then a bit of the front… I was pretty heavily inspired by Lins’s upcycle of her chest of drawers, and decided I could emulate something similar for ours! It took me the whole weekend, but boy was it worth it!

The biggest part was fixing the top. I used nails and wood glue to secure the loose boards back into place, and then I filled in the gap with wood filler. That took some time to dry, but once it did, I was able to sand down the top and then get painting! It took a few more coats of paint as bare wood is sometimes wont to do, but I’m so pleased with the result!

The only place I struggled was getting the handles off, so I had to paint around them on the top drawer. Once the paint cures a little more, I’ll try to clean them up!

Once the paint dried, I wanted to make sure this corner had it’s own little bit of character. It had a little bar tray on it before, but I swapped the old one out with one that fit the new look a little better. Then, I got some cute prints, a few more books on cocktails so we could make better use of our new area, and a few other decorative bits.

The real effort now will be keeping this area tidy! It was something of a catch all before, in part because it already didn’t look great. Because I had to take everything out of the drawers though, I was able to clear out a few bits, and reorganising meant that it’s generally more put together now!

All in all, I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out!

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Valspar Furniture Paint in White (Pr Product) / Farrow and Ball Paint in Calamine / Wood Tray, West Elm (PR PRODUCT) / Gin O’Clock Book, Bookshop.org / The Cocktail Garden, Bookshop.org / Plant Pot, Anthropologie / Plant, Beard & Daisies / Laundrette Print, Fanclub Clothing / Somebody To Love Print, Fanclub Clothing / Wood Frames, Not On The High Street

There you have it! I think the best thing is that while I spent a bit of money for the finishing touches, I didn’t have to buy a new piece of furniture. It felt a little needless to be honest! The slow fashion mindset I’ve been applying to my wardrobe should definitely be applied to our home too!

Plus, it’s got a bit of character now, doesn’t it?