You may recall several months ago I snagged a free dresser that someone was throwing away. It was literally sitting in the snow amongst other garbage before I rescued it.The plan was to turn it into a TV stand. After a good cleaning and sitting in our dining room through the remainder of our endless winter, that idea has finally come to fruition!

It needed to be refinished and I knew I wanted to paint it, so I started with the drawers. I took off the hardware and began sanding it with my new electric sander. (Thanks, honey!)I highly recommend using an electric sander for big jobs. I had a battery-powered one for a previous project and it always died quickly. Electric is way better because, in my best Tim the Tool Man Taylor impression, it has more power!  I used course sandpaper – 80-grit – to start and then went back over with finer 150-grit to smooth it out.I then took the same approach on the base, going over some of the smaller areas by hand.The plan was to keep the top two drawer areas open. This is where we would put our DVD player and such. My husband drilled out two holes in the back for the cables to go through … and he measured, cut and added plywood to make for a sturdier shelf.He also added a few brackets on the inner sides to support some minor splits in the wood.

After wiping it all down with a wet cloth, I then started to prime it. I used one coat of Zinsser Primer that I applied with a paint brush. Once it dried, I lightly sanded it with 180-grit sand paper and then wiped it down one more time. It was finally ready to paint!I chose regular latex paint – Mystified by Valspar in semi-gloss. I applied light coats using a foam roller and foam paint brush. To get the dark look I was going for it actually ended up needing 4 coats! I thought the painting would never end! The drawers weren’t so bad, but doing the shelf area was kind of a pain.I’m not sure how necessary it was, but I also ended up sealing it with Minwax Polycrylic. It was easy to spray on and I was able to do the recommended 3 coats pretty quickly.Once it was dry, I added new hardware, which I had ordered from Lowe’s. Love this antique look!The entire project definitely took me way longer than I had anticipated (3 separate weekends), but I am so happy with how it turned out! And all of my hard work paid off, literally — the total cost was less than $100!!