Before and After: Black Numeral Dresser

Holy smokes, people, I've been a painting fool lately!  Seriously, I thought I'd given myself carpel tunnel for about a week. Believe it or not I AM working on projects, despite the fact that I've been a little scarce around here.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned this or not, but we're moving from California to Michigan this month.  We're about to say goodbye to our friends and family here, as well as all of our stuff.  It's going to travel to MI and sit in storage while we do a month-long road trip to see friends and family in Idaho, Utah and New Mexico. We'll get to Michigan around the end of June/beginning of July and live in corporate housing while we search for a house.  That's going to be a whole other ridiculously cuh-RAZY experience in itself, I'm sure.  Meanwhile, I've got movers coming in a week and a half and furniture in the garage that needs to get OUT and into the store to SELL-- pronto! 

So here we go.  This is my most recently completed project and one that I'm really happy with.
I vowed a while ago that I couldn't acquire anymore pathetic furniture to rehabilitate, seeing as how we're moving and all, and my garage already had quite the collection. And I did good!  I stayed away from thrift stores (at least the furniture section), I didn't go to a single yard sale, and I completely ignored Craigslist. It was TORTURE! Then one day I innocently wandered through the furniture aisle of a thrift store, thinking there's no way I could be tempted to buy anything with our move looming so close- until I spotted this.

It's no secret that I have a soft spot for long, low dressers. Perhaps you've noticed.  
There was the grayish blue french dresser...

...and the monochromatic striped one...

...and my favorite robin's egg blue rustic one...

...and the creamy white dresser with the big golden damask...

...and the super distressed blue one that I did for a fellow vendor at the store.

 This one was about as pathetic as they come, and it was priced reasonably and these things usually sell fairly quickly.  Obviously, I HAD to buy it.  I have to admit, I felt pretty sheepish when I admitted to my husband that I'd bought another big dresser. But I had a plan, and that plan came together beautifully on this piece! I started by removing those weird drawer pulls. I considered keeping them until I noticed one was missing, so they had to go.

The holes got filled in with wood filler and then sanded smooth.

The plan for this dresser was a lot like what I did to this numeral waterfall style dresser from a while back. But instead of staining the numbers after the paint was applied, I did the staining first this time. I decided where the numbers would be on each drawer, then stained that little section dark and let it dry.

While the stain dried I painted the body of the dresser with some black DIY chalk paint.

Using an exacto knife and contact paper, I cut numbers in a style that I liked and carefully applied them in the stained sections, being sure to rub the edges really well to prevent seepage.

Then it was time to paint the drawers. The absolute BEST part is peeling up the contact paper and seeing those crisp, warm wood numbers underneath the paint! I distressed everything a bit, then drilled some new holes for rope drawer pulls and wiped the whole thing down with satin polyurethane.

The insides of the drawers are a little funky, some covered with a bright yellow lining and some with a black and white damask.

Wouldn't this be cool in a boy's room? Or as a sideboard in a bachelor pad? Oooh, or even as an entertainment center!

I'm telling ya, watch out for this style of dresser. They can do so much more than store your clothes!