It feels like just yesterday I was running across the aisles of our local Goodwill, pushing my way through overstuffed racks, and jumping over rabid children to get to this faux card catalog dresser. In reality it's been almost two years since this little guy came into our life. Six bucks is all it took to bring him home. I had grand plans for this dresser and then, well, life got in the way and it was yet another project added to my "some day" list.
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Here's a glimpse of the card catalog in it's humble beginnings. The bad news is this is one of the few "before" pictures I have of this dresser thanks to a computer virus (story of my life), and I realize when decorated, it actually doesn't look half bad. But it was a tad too orangey for my taste and it had a TON of scratches and nicks in the wood and an old, purple nail polish spill on top. It was pretty much screaming for a makeover.
Now for the good news...."some day" came and our card catalog dresser finally got it's well-deserved facelift!
I had actually painted the bottom of the dresser last Fall. It's a custom color I created, however, I can't recall the ratio and I can only remember one of the paint colors I used. Seriously, what kind of blogger am I?? But basically I mixed some Martha Stewart Sailor Blue Chalk Paint with a dark grey paint. I love how it turned out, kind of reminds me of denim and what girl doesn't love her denim? Not to be biased or anything towards my yoga pants cause lord knows I love 'em too!
It took me until last week to get to the top of the card catalog. Let me just note that I have post traumatic stress just looking at that hand sander. I attempted for an hour to get all of the previous gunk off the top of the dresser with not much luck and then in walks my hubby later that night all like "You know a belt sander would take that right off, right?" *Facepalm*
Once everything was sanded down and cleaned off , I went to town staining the top.
I used one of my all-time favorite stain colors, Miniwax Weathered Oak. It's the same stain I worked with in our playroom on the planked walls. It's got some grey in it but it's just the perfect stain for when you just want to highlight the grains of light wood. It gave the top of this dresser a butcher block look and I love me some butcher block
I was really on the fence on if I should go dark or light with the stain on top. I asked for opinions both on my Insta stories and Facebook page and it was pretty tied for "light" versus "either would look nice". I was gravitating more towards light stain once I saw how beautiful the wood was after sanding it. I've been on a huge raw wood kick lately and felt like the lighter top would flow well with our current decor.
I haven't decided on it's permanent home but for now I love seeing our card catalog peeking out from the back of our dining room. I do, however, envision it making its way eventually into a master bedroom makeover some time in the future.
This card catalog makeover really rejuvenated my love for making over furniture. Even after all these years of refurbishing pieces, I'm still amazed how easy it is to transform one's trash into another's treasure!
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