Me, the proud mother hen

...of my first successful furniture redo! (alternate post title: The Easiest 4 Month Project)

The original vision started out differently than the finished product turned out, I had hoped that it would end up in the bathroom with a sink in it in the form of a super cool repurposed vanity. But alas, it wasn't meant to be. After I sanded it down, primed, painted, and decided I loved it, we decided that it was too big for our petite bathroom. So, after I shed a few secret tears, I decided that it was turning out too cute to give up on, and after a bit more brainstorming, came up with the final project, which now lives in the guest bedroom.

Here's a little before and after action, to appreciate the progress and remember the process for future exploration into the world of painting old furniture.
Found: One scratched-up puke green dresser with intensely brassy knobs. It's a well built piece of furniture, nice and sturdy, and solid wood, so I overlooked the crazy color and convinced myself that the ugly duckling could be transformed into a beautiful swan.

First I lightly sanded the whole thing, and then painted it with satin finish paint (Behr paint with primer from HD in Slightly Slate). Painting with a roller was the best decision ever, it didn't show any lines or brushstrokes! Two coats and it was good to go.

It sat like this, with no drawer pulls, for a loooong time. Initially I thought I could paint the original pulls and use them. I got some oil rubbed bronze spraypaint, which worked great, but the end result was just so... Batman. I don't know, if I lived in Gotham City it might be okay, but that's not quite the look I was hoping for. 

So, plan B. I'm a simple girl with simple taste, and I thought it would be a piece of cake to procure some basic drawer pulls. I started looking online for simple, old-school looking pulls (like this), but they are so dang expensive! 17 total pulls multiplied by a couple bucks per pull... that's more than I paid for the dresser and paint supplies combined!  

Moving on to plan C, where I thought I had to settle for less than majestic. We came across some plain white knobs at Rebuilders for super cheap, but they made me feel like I was in a boring nursery, and there was still nothing on the bottom drawers. So they had to go.

On to plan D. I finally stumbled upon my perfect solution, getting scrap leather (at an awesome recycle-ish store in north Portland that happens to be called Scrap) and some brass screws at the depot to turn into cutesy little handles. Voila!