Monday, December 21, 2009

snazzy dresser


As a Christmas present to myself, I finally finished the dresser I've been working on for the guest room!
Many months ago Steven found a busted Ikea Anes dresser on the side of the road and brought it home, even though I have tried very hard to break Steven of his habit doing stuff like that.
Don't get me wrong, I think finding free and useful stuff that people don't want anymore is great, in principle, but Steven sometimes isn't very discriminating about what he decides to claim, and half the time we end up storing his finds in the garage for a year before putting them back out on the side of the road.
This time the damage didn't seem so bad and I'd been looking for a dresser for our guest room so I was happy.
We figured out what was wrong with it, went up to Ikea to get some missing hardware (for free!), did a little jury rigging and soon enough the dresser was as good as new! (Maybe even better, thanks to said jury rigging.)

I loved the size and shape of it, but I'm just not all that into the plain birch plywood. I do like it, but since so many people we know are so very fond of it and use it so often I sometimes itch for other things.
So, after obsessing about this dresser that Piet Hein Eek did for Moooi,
And ruling out hand painting it like an 18th century Italian commode, I decided to wallpaper it.

Since the dresser was free I splurged on Marcel Wanders Alice wallpaper and went with black because I loved this image I saw a few months ago so much.

I painted the whole dresser black and then wallpapered just the fronts of the drawers.

Isn't it just about the sexiest dresser you've ever seen?

(photos taken in the studio- not the guest room. Just so you know and aren't confused if you come visit.)

18 comments:

Grace said...

Impressive. It looks so nice. you did a fine job.

paula said...

this is gorgeous! I would never of thought it started out on the side of the road.

Lauren said...

Oh wow, this turned out GREAT!!!!!!!!

Steven said...

Sexy? I'd say!

Saskia said...

It looks fantastic!! I'd love to have that dresser brightening up a corner of my home :)

Thank you for your comment - I'm glad you found my blog, yours is great!

Happy Christmas!

Saskia x

Rachel Dangerfield said...

This is really lovely, you did a fantastic job!

chiara said...

wow! fantastic!

Helen said...

How creative! It looks lovely.

Erin @ SYL: Slipcover Your Life said...

I've been wanting to do this to my dresses! You did such a good job!

Gloria said...

You did a great job on that old dresser, way to recycle something and turn it into a work of functional art. My daughter, who tends to see faces in almost anything, told me that it looks like it's smiling! It's happy to have found a good home. Merry Christmas!

Anonymous said...

Excellent work! Wonderful transformation, Abigail!!!

You Are My Fave said...

I can't believe that this is the same dresser. Nicely done.

LenoreNeverM♡re said...

"hello gorgeous!"
Reminded me a little of Batik print I saw recently, love the subtle grey tones~
xo*

Retro Chick said...

That looks amazing!

I feel inspired to jazz up some of my boring plywood.

Pesky Cat Designs said...

Wow! You did an amazing job on that dresser! it's absolutely beautiful. :)

Sarah said...

That wallpaper was made to be papered over a side of the road dresser!Sexy indeed!

executive training said...

They are so beautiful! I also have some furniture that I could try to renovate and make more beautiful but I always forget to do it.

kali said...

That's gorgeous. I realize this is a couple years ago for you, but I recently acquired an ikea anes 2-drawer dresser and am now inspired to do something similar, probably with a (sample) of Trove wallpaper, like the azha. Did you paint it in a disassembled state? What kind of paint did you use? Did you have to sand it at all? How did you apply the wallpaper? Did you seal it afterward?