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8 Dec 2013

Ivy's Chest of Drawers

Before Ivy was born, P and I decided to revamp a chest of drawers for the baby room. I took pictures of the process to share, and recently realised that I never posted about it! So here we go.

Pre-baby being born, we didn't know whether 'it' was going to be a lad or a lady. And even if we did, I wanted the drawers to work for other babies we may have which may or may not follow the trend. So neutral colours it was! In fact, most of the baby room is white with a bit of a 'rainbow' theme I guess. Some pink has entered proceedings, but they are mainly from gifts. I have come to appreciate a bit of pink these days anyway!

To start, I found a second-hand chest of drawers on Gumtree for $80. We drove out one night to St Ives to pick it up. It had dark, brass handles on it and was lightly varnished. Here's the pic from Gumtree. So we took off the handles (we still have them I think if anyone wants 'em!) and filled the holes. I had already bought some new knobs on Etsy. Then we used my dad's sander to take off the varnish. This was all in my folks' back garden! After taping up the bit we didn't want painted, we then painted the whole lot white. Two coats. In fact, I think we did three coats on the frame so that the finish was shiny and durable. White was a big theme for me in the room. I know it's very 'now' and will probably be 'so last year' but I like the plainness of it, so that colours really pop out when you add them in. Plus, it lightens the room (I'm not into dark baby rooms) and works for a boy or a girl baby. Not to mention it's soooo easy to match your furniture. Next came the colours! I had previously gone to Bunnings, picked out a colour swatch in green then took it to the paint-man to make me up 5 sample pots. They were about $10 each. There was plenty in there for 2-3 coats on the drawers! You can see them on the side of each drawer. We did that so we didn't mix them up... as the paint is going on wet and the colours are so close, it's easy to make a mistake. Here's me with a big belly (probably about a month off) doing my fair share of painting! And here it is!! We are soooo happy with it. It feels so nice to have done something ourselves. Something the kids can put stickers on and hide things in. Something that isn't too baby-ish so might last them a while! The cost for the whole project (drawers, sandpaper, paint etc) was about $150.

This was in our old place, sans knobs at that point... (special mention to Liv who got us these awesome prints! For some reason Ivy thinks the bear is hilarious and just stares at him, grinning. Weirdo baby.) And now in the new room! Found those fish at the St Kilda markets when we were in Melbs recently. I promise to do a whole Ivy room tour soon. I love it in there, and people have been kind enough to comment how nice it is. I agree! *She says modestly*


Posted by Esther at 9:48 am