Primitive Dresser

This dresser had been in my garage for-evah! I picked it up in early August at at barn sale for $15. The kicker was, it had 2 layers of nasty brown, chipping paint on it over stain and varnish...and it was OLD. The tag said 1936 from Crittendon and Company furniture. But, naively, I said to myself "I've always wanted to try stripping something...this is perfect!". Little did I know...

I got a bottle of Citristrip and went to town. After 2 hours, I saw the bubbling that I expected. But when I went to scrape it, it was a gum consistency. I worked at it for hours and then decided to take a break from it. I repeated this same thing 2 more times, and the darn dresser wouldn't come completely clean. I was D-O-N-E with it....so it sat in the garage like this for weeks

Then a few weeks ago, I read one of my favorite blogs...Primitive and Proper http://www.primitiveandproper.blogspot.com./

Cassie is a-mazing at transforming pieces of furniture and give them new life. Cassie took this dresser

and turned it into this


How fantastic is that?? SO primitive yet so chic!
After seeing this, I knew how I was going to finish the mostly stripped dresser that was driving me nuts :) I emailed with Cassie to get a few tips...she was SO helpful!

I headed to the paint store, grabbed sample sizes of Cabot stain in Milkweed (semi-solid) and Dark Gray (semi translucent) and got to work. One hour later, here is the result:


I know...I know. No hardware *blush*. I was rushing to get this in the car today and this was the picture I got. Not great, but I was really happy with the result. And it's already been purchased!

Special shout out to Cassie for all the help!
~Allison

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