Money Saving Tip: DIY Furniture For The Nursery

When we lived in our studio basement apartment, we didn't get a dresser for our baby girl because we didn't have room. Instead, we put her clothes and other items in canvas totes on our bookshelf (the books got demoted to under our bed).

We moved into our house about a month and a half ago and all of our baby girl's clothing had been in a pile in the corner of her room, while the dresser we found on Craigslist sat in the corner of our living room just begging me to give it a makeover. Well, I got a sudden burst of energy last week and finally got to work on it! 

I really didn't take pictures of it along the way, but I'll describe what it looked like at first. It was a medium/dark oak color with matching wooden knobs. It's solid wood, but it had a lot of minor scratches and a couple deep gashes on one side on the bottom.

So here is what I did to beautify it for my baby girl's nursery:

1. Took all the knobs off, pulled the drawers out and lightly sanded the entire dresser. I knew I was going to use a bonding primer, so I didn't worry about taking the finish off. I just did a quick job to rough it up a little bit. I used 120 grit and it probably didn't take any longer than 10 min.
2. I filled in the deep scratches with Elmer's Wood Fill and a putty knife. Once it dried, I sanded it down.
3. With a brush, I put a coat of bonding primer over everything. I used Zinsser Cover Stain Primer - stain blocker, bond coat.
4. After it dried I put on 3 coats of Clark + Kensington Ultra White in flat on the dresser. I definitely would have used spray paint, but I had this paint on hand from when Ace Hardware was giving away FREE quarts! I put 2 coats of Clark + Kensington Patty Cake, also in flat, on the drawer faces. This was also a freebie!
5. Then, I stenciled on the leaves and flowers using some acrylic silver paint. I used folkArt Metallic in Silver Stering. It was one small rectangular stencil that I just moved around and rotated so it didn't look like the same pattern over and over. I used painter's tape to secure the stencil to the dresser.
6. Finally, I sprayed a few coats of Minwax Fast-Drying Polyurethane in Clear Semi-Gloss over the entire dresser.
7. Ok, I guess that wasn't the true "finally". Finally, I put the on the new silver knobs that I got at Lowes. 

Here's a closer up picture of the stenciling:

So this is why repurposing furniture is a money saving tip. Here's what I spent:

• Dresser from Craigslist $50
• Primer (from Walmart) $7.97
• Polyurethane (from Walmart) $7.27
• Paint Brush (from Walmart) $8.47
• Silver Paint (from Walmart) $1.57
• Paint Brushes for stenciling (from Michaels) $4.97
• Stencil (from Michaels) $4.97
• Hardware (from Lowes) $17.33
• White and Pink Paint - FREE from Ace Hardware!
• Sandpaper, Wood Fill, and Putty Knife - already had on hand

Total Spent = $104.12

The great thing is that I have a lot of left over supplies for other projects. I didn't even use half of the white and pink paint, I have a lot of primer left over for tackling some wood paneling around the house, and now I have some nice paint brushes!

To show you how much money I saved by repurposing a dresser, here are some other dressers that I would have considered if we had a money tree in our backyard:



This pretty thing would have cost me $239.99 at Babies "R" Us, and that's knocked down from $319.99!



This one from Target is $174.99.

This one from Buy Buy Baby costs a hefty $299.99 and that's on clearance!

Sorry I couldn't get a bigger picture for this one. It costs $250 and is from JCPenny. 

So, as you see, I saved a lot of money by refinishing a used dresser. Best of all, it's more than just a pretty white dresser, it's custom made for my baby girl's nursery!

Have you done any DIY projects for your baby's nursery or child's room that saved you a lot of money?