Waterfall Dresser Upcycle

For me, the beauty of repainting and restoring furniture lies in the ability to completely change the look of piece of furniture.  A little paint goes a long long way to renewing and transforming an old and tired piece.  Let’s face it…the quality of new furniture today is nowhere near the quality of older pieces.  Every furniture painter has a different way of interpreting the curves, the wood, and the hardware on a piece of furniture.   If you ask three different artists to paint the same waterfall dresser blue, you will have three very different looking dressers.  One thing that can completely change the look of a piece of furniture is the hardware.  

By simply switching out the hardware, you can completely dress up a piece or just simply it.  This is a quick and inexpensive way to transform furniture.

Before

Here is a piece I recently restored.  This is the before photo.  It is a  waterfall chest.  I’m not really sure why someone would use this color scheme but perhaps Caesar needed a new dresser to place beside his chariot.  Or maybe it was a gag project. 

The Process

I sanded and stripped the wood, painted the edges, and stained the top, sides and the drawers.  This waterfall dresser was in amazing condition.  The wood beneath the paint was absolutely beautiful.  There were no major or even minor mars or imperfections.  The before hardware consisted of 4 drawer pulls and 2 knobs that I believe were all original.  Waterfall pieces are not very popular these days.  They are usually the last ones to sell in my store The Blue Building Antiques and Consignment.  I frequently paint old pieces to freshen them up and make them more contemporary.  With the current farmhouse trend, waterfall pieces just aren’t that desirable, at least not in their original state.  However, a little paint and stain can go a long way.  Add some beautiful hardware and embellishments, and you have a stunning contemporary piece.

New hardware for this waterfall dresser was provided by D.Lawless Hardware as part of this month’s Fab Furniture Flipping Contest.   D. Lawless Hardware has been in business for 30 years providing a myriad of cabinet hardware to businesses, home builders, crafters, DIY blogs, corporations and online customers.  D.Lawless provided hardware to all of the contestants for free in exchange for writing a blog post about the projects.  I’ve used their hardware in the past and am always super satisfied with the quality and assortment of products.  Here is another project in which I used D.Lawless Hardware.

I selected the following items from D. Lawless Hardware, which were provided to me for free, as a FFFC participant, in exchange for this post about my furniture flip.  

I thought the shiny gold would stand out against the dark stain.  To dress up the piece, I selected the applique pair.  I painted them white and installed them on the drawer fronts with glue.  

I painted the appliques white, glued them to the drawer fronts  and installed the beautiful knobs.  I had to drill new holes for the gold knobs.  Usually you will need to fill the old holes, sand and restain or paint.  In this case, however, the applique embellishments covered the original holes so I didn’t need to make these repairs.

After

And here is the finished piece.  

I think the appliques and the beautiful gold knobs help add and air of elegance and beauty to the piece.  What do you think?

There is something about the rich color in a newly stained piece of furniture…so deep and rich!

And a view of the sides.  I love the contrast of the dark stain with the vivid white.

The Fab Furniture Flipping Contest is a monthly contest in which bloggers flip a piece of furniture in conjunction with the monthly theme.  This month’s theme is Make It Pretty. 

We have 5 wonderfully talented hosts in this group:  Evey (Evey’s Creations), Scottie (Saved by Scottie), Christie (Ritzy Parties Inc.), Jodi (Glittered Barn Designs), and Jes (My DIY Envy).

You can check out Jen’s project using the fabulous D. Lawless Hardware here!  At the end of her post you will see all of the projects entered into this contest!  What a variety!

If you are an active blogger and are interested in participating in future contests, contact info@eveyscreations.com.