Studio Apartment Bedroom Makeover

Now that I have been moved in for a little over two months, I decided to start tackling these painting projects. Once the kitchen was completed, I knew I wanted to start painting the furniture. I must admit, I was a little nervous to paint this chest of drawers since I really liked the hand painting on them but it was also driving me crazy that it didn't match Dear Son's bed. Here is a picture of his room before I painted the chest of drawers.
And here is the after. I am so pleased with the way it turned out.

I actually had two of these dressers in my former apartment. I had one on each side of my king size bed. Here is picture of my master bedroom in my former apartment. I loved the curve on these chest of drawers as well as the hand painting on them. I thought they were very romantic. When I moved to my new apartment however, I didn't have room for both of them in my bedroom so instead of getting rid of one of them, I decided to use one in my master bedroom and one in Dear Son's room. Here is a close up of the painting on the drawers. I removed the drawers and hardware and decided to take a close up of the drawers.

I was very nervous about painting them because I liked them so much. I decided to follow the Just a Girl Blog Furniture Painting instructions. Her furniture always looks amazing. Of course, after reading through the instructions, I changed a few things. First, I cleaned all of my furniture with cleaning products I had on hand. I prefer natural cleaners so that is what I did. Next, I decided to forgo priming the dressers since the color was already dark and I knew I would be painting them black. I went to Home Depot and asked for furniture paint and decided to try Rustoleum's furniture paint which is a low luster formula. If would have helped if I would have taken a picture of the can before I started painting. I painted both dressers black even though I am only posting pictures of the one I used in Dear Son's room. Basically, I forgot to take an after picture showing my whole bed along with the dresser, lol. Here is a picture of the dresser after two coats. I think it turned out great. I should also mention that these dressers were distressed when I purchased them so I didn't attempt to patch anything but instead left them distressed.
Chris's painting instructions were excellent. She used a foam roller and foam brushes which is how I typically paint furniture. The only catch was that these dressers were full of curves making it nearly impossible! No only were the sides of the dressers curved but each drawer was curved as well. Some of the drawers were concave and some were convex! Talk about a nightmare! I had more trouble on the concave drawers but it still turned out nicely.





What made it more challenging was that I had to do all of this very quickly. Dad takes Dear Son on Saturday night so I had to get both of these dressers painted in a little over a day. Since I live in a studio apartment, I had to paint them right in the room. I covered the carpet well and didn't spill any paint.

Because the light (daylight) is behind the dresser, it made it difficult to see the paint job.

I ended up using some silk flowers on his dresser because it was more budget friendly. I still prefer to use a dresser scarf. I always love the crisp, ironed cotton in contrast to the black dresser. I closed the blinds and took some pictures at night to give you a better view of the dresser.












Here is another daytime photo. I love this picture because the flowers are reflected in the mirror.

Another photo.



I was really glad I painted his dresser. The black seems really fresh and makes the whole place feel new.



Here is a photo of Dear Son's bedroom in our old apartment. You may recall, Dear Son's bed is a hospital bed and the headboard and footboard slip over the hospital bed. These are Tendercare Hospital Beds. Click here to view the You Tube Video for Tendercare Beds. Hard to believe his bed is a hospital bed! You can click here to see what Dear Son's hospital bed looked like before we got the Tendercare Beds. I love this bed! You have to admit, if I didn't tell you this was a hospital bed, you probably wouldn't have known it.

The bedding is from Pottery Barn. I chose yellow for Dear Son's bedding for two reasons. First, yellow, white and black is a classic color combination and I thought that looked nice. Second, Dear Son is such a happy young man and was always a happy kid. I think if Dear Son were a color, he would be yellow like the sun because he is always so happy:) I think every kid is a color; you can tell by their personalities. Some kids are orange, some kids are red, etc. Dear Son, he's a yellow for sure.

The mirror is from Pottery Barn as well. The photo over Dear Son's bed is of the Arboretum near our home. I took the picture in the fall when the leaves were changing. Dear Son and I used to go to the Arboretum a lot when he was younger.

One last look. I hope you enjoyed his newly painted dresser! Linking to Just A Girl Show and Share Day.