Ombre Dresser Makeover

I finally have pictures to share with you of the dresser I mentioned a while back.  Every time I would think of taking them, my daughter would be napping so that didn't work out too well.  Today I was able to distract her with a little Elmo and sneak in there and snap a few before nap time.  Here's a reminder of what it looked like before.

I bought it at a yard sale.  The lady told me it was a family heirloom.  However, it was in need of a serious makeover.  Thankfully that doesn't usually deter me too much.  She told me she had stained it to match her daughter's room when she was younger, but it looks like maybe she used some sort of gel stain?  It was all gunked up on the side so I knew I would have to strip it.  We negotiated and got down to a price that I felt comfortable with, considering all the work that needed to be done.  I had actually been looking for a dresser for a while.  They always say you can never find something when you are looking for it and that was definitely true in this case.  I've seen tons of dressers while thrifting, but couldn't find a single one when I started looking for one.  This was the perfect size, shape, was solid wood, and the drawers were nice and deep.

The medallion was way off centered so I decided to nix it.

I turned to Citristrip to get the majority of the stain off.

I would love to say it was a quick and easy task, but that's never really the case when you are using strippers. (at least for me anyways)  Long story short, I had to do a few coats of Citristrip and lots of sanding and cleaning.  When I started removing the stain from the top I saw how beautiful the wood was.  I was so tempted to just stain the wood and paint the drawer fronts white, but it wouldn't have really worked in my daughter's room.  The dark wood felt a little too masculine with everything else that's going on in there.  

I painted the main part of the dresser with oil based Rustoleum in a glossy white finish.  Then, I painted each one of the drawers a different shade of pink to create an ombre effect.  

The above picture is the truest representation of the actual color of the drawers.  

I'm so glad I was able to find something that worked well in her room.  Before we had a small dresser in the closet and a cabinet in the bedroom for storing toys, diapers, etc.  The dresser is so much more functional and holds so many more clothes, which is important for a girl!