You know me, I love DIY and I love free-so when the Walmart Moms were offered a chance to test out Glidden’s 2 in 1 paint on the project of their choice at home I jumped on it!
This video shows you the entire project, and then below I explain in detail:
I decided to paint the dressers in Princess’s room-which are actually my grandparent’s original bedroom set. They are very square and plain-my Grandma Hertzel was not into curlycues or decorations. She was a “danish modern” type lady. The dressers are solid wood and had been stained a deep cherry color so dark they were ALMOST black. Which can be lovely-but they have been used and abused over the years and so the finish was coming up in spots, there were water rings, dings and marks galore all over them.
I know, I know. Some of you are cringing at the idea of painting what is basically “antique” wooden furniture-but hey, since they are solid wood and very flat and square (ie easy to sand and work with for refinishing) when we get tired of the color (PURPLE!) they can be stripped and repainted relatively easily.
So I trucked myself off to my local Walmart and with my gift card I purchased Glidden Brilliance Collection Interior Semi-Gloss 2 in 1 Paint and Primer. The color? Amethyst Jewel. I grabbed a bucket of paint, brought it up to the paint counter and they mixed it up. . . and it started to overflow.
This is where I learned my first lesson. . . dark colored paints actually get mixed into a different can than light colored paint. I unknowingly had grabbed the wrong can, and the paint mixer guy didn’t notice. . . the difference in the paint? Nothing really, except there is a bit less paint in it so that when all the colors go in needed to make a really dark color they don’t overflow. DOH! They very kindly mixed me up another gallon. (note: they did that just as a matter of course for good customer service-they didn’t know I was a Walmart Mom).
Shortly after I got home it started to rain. And basically didn’t stop for more than short periods for over 2 weeks. Since we don’t have a finished basement and our garages are full of things like motorcycles, pellet stove pellets and lumber there was no where to sand and paint except outside-and that wasn’t happening in the rain.
Finally it dried out enough to sand & paint. I knew that I didn’t need a primer with the paint, but I wasn’t sure if I needed to sand the drawers down to bare wood or just take the sheen off-so I called Glidden. They were “experiencing a larger than normal number of calls” and the recording asked me to leave a message and someone would call me back. Yeah-right. I was a bit skeptical but left my name, number and a bit about my issue. Low and behold a lady called me back within 30 minutes. I explained my issue and she assured me that all I needed to do was knock the gloss of the paint. She also told me that due to the dark purple color of the paint I would probably want to do two coats in order to fully cover. I assured her that was always in the cards-my kids are rough on furniture so I figured 2 coats was the best way to go! I was very impressed with how knowledgeable she was. Way to go Glidden!
Well once I got sanding (and my brother, and the kids. . . we sort of all took turns a bit with the hand held electric sander) we sort of couldn’t start and wound up taking it down pretty much to bare wood anyway. That process did wind up taking a couple of days-there is only so long you can sand before you start to have your hands go numb! That meant a lot of dragging dressers in and out of the barn each day for 2 or 3 days.
Each item had to be wiped down with a damp cloth to remove sawdust residue. I was also going from the drawer pulls that had 2 holes to single knobs-mostly because the distance between the two holes was not the standard size they now make the 2 screw pulls. Sigh. So I had the extra step of filling in 2 of the 4 holes on each of the 14 drawers, then sanding them down so they were flush with the wood. Add in another day for that.
Finally it was time to paint. I was very glad at this point that I didn’t have to do a layer of primer before my two layers of paint! The paint mixed easily and went on well. I probably could have gotten away with a single coat of thick purple, but with the humidity still in the air I figured two slightly thinner layers would dry better.
The three dressers only took about 2/3 of the gallon of paint, so I can paint other things purple if I like (nooooo!!!!!). The gallon cost me $28.97. Believe it or not the most expensive part of the whole project was the 28 new knobs I needed which were just over $30.
So what do you think? Did you like the finished purple dressers? Have you ever painted furniture?
****This is a sponsored post****
Disclosure: This is a sponsored review I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.
Well, I’m one of the people saying, “Ouch – don’t paint that wood!” I would have sanded and re-stained the furniture.
But, your photo does look nice. How has the paint held up so far? Has the paint made the drawers stick in any way? I have painted “bare furniture” wood cupboards in the past and humidity has affected the closure at various times. Keep us up-dated on your dressers!
Princess is a lucky girl! Love the purple.
The dressers look great! i have painted dressers and nightstands for my daughter when she was very young, and they turned out well. Hmmm…maybe it is time to update.