Painted Waterfall Dresser - How To Cover Water Damage On A Dime

I found this beautiful, wooden waterfall dresser... OK, it was pretty ugly actually, but I needed a dresser and it had potential. This one was going for pretty much nothing on Craigslist, so I picked it up and started playing dress-up with it. :)

You can see from the pictures that the veneer on the top of the dresser was peeling off. It was the same story on the dresser sides at the bottom where there was water damage. But the refurbishing ideas were brewing....

I'd heard that you could peel off the veneer on waterfall dressers and still have a decent top. So I did it - and immediately regretted it. As you can see from the picture below, under the veneer was warped, cracked, and sorry looking to say the least.

The next idea was to cover it with contact paper. But to do that I would need a smoother surface. So I tried to glue it down, then attempted a sanding and paint job...

...but to no avail. Leaving me with a severely misshapen surface, this dresser was determined to look ugly.

Calling on my clever sister Summer, she suggested I try covering the damage with duct tape and THEN with the contact paper.

I gave it a go.

I was delighted with how well it worked! Seeing that the duct tape was sticking firmly to the painted wood (no peeling up) and it smoothed out the surface, I covered the whole top with a duct-tape veneer.

Yes! Now it was time to test out the contact paper and see how well it stuck to the duct tape.

Beautiful! The contact paper had a bit of a hard time adhering to the back of the dresser (which was NOT painted). Another strip of duct tape just along the edge did the trick (of course, where no one will see).

Time to address the water damage on the bottom of the dresser (thankfully just on the sides). I covered them with contact paper, but seeing that the warped wood showed through the contact paper, I turned again to my sister's brilliant idea...

...and covered every cracked and peeling piece of wood with duct tape!

I even covered the underside of the dresser because it looked pretty sorry too. I was afraid the contact paper wouldn't stay tucked under if it didn't have a good surface to work with.

I didn't bother painting the underside. I simply cut off the pieces that were destined to fall off anyway, cleaned the surface of any dust and splinters, and put the tape right on there. And it worked!

I finished applying the contact paper, using my trusty library card.

The edges got a perfect trim with my never-leave-home-without-it pocket knife.

Once I finished covering the dresser sides with contact paper, I tucked the contact paper up and underneath the dresser sides. And just like I did with the top of the dresser, I tacked on a couple strips of duct tape over the edge of the contact paper to make sure it wasn't going anywhere.

With all the water damage and peeling veneer now taken care of, it was time to make it pretty!

After taking off the hardware and painting each drawer front white, I taped off a thin square on each drawer and gave it a sharp black edging.

It looked a little unfinished, so I grabbed a rubber stamp, dabbed it in black paint and PRACTICED ON A PIECE OF PAPER! Always practice first. It keeps you from making really dumb mistakes and having to repaint your stuff.

The first stamp always blobbed, but the second one looked good and the third looked even better - perhaps a bit distressed. The slight imperfections of the second 2 stamps were perfect!

So I stamped a beautifully *imperfect* row of flourishes across the bottom of my dresser. Press rubber stamp in the paint, stamp on paper (to remove blobs), stamp on dresser once or twice, and repeat!

And that did it! It was finished. I put the handles back on (which already had a great worn finish, almost an industrial look to them) and put it in my room.

See? Much better!

And just so you know, I made this project about a year ago and everything is holding up really well!

Just remember to follow the contact paper instructions... I should have overlapped the contact paper on the top more than just a quarter inch. Half an inch to an inch would have been best since I had plenty of contact paper to work with, and you can't even see the seam in the design across the top.

But everything else - duct tape, contact paper, paint and all - is working out just swimmingly (and with a couple of young kids that love to use everything as a hammer on my dresser, that is saying something)!

I hope this helps someone out there refurbish their water-damaged, warped, or peeling furniture piece that needs a little love. I'm tickled with the way my painted waterfall dresser turned out. :)

Happy DIYing everyone!

Inexpensive Pantry Organization

   Once upon a time there was a girl who had a very messy pantry.  It was never easy to find what she needed and she often ended up buying more of items she already had because she couldn't find them in her disorganized pantry.

   Then one day, she had an epiphany.  "I'll organize my pantry!" she thought.  "But how?"

   She jumped on the internet and came across many lovely organizational ideas, but all required a larger budget than she had available.

   The she had another epiphany.  "I can just affix a laminated tag to my wire shelves under where each item should go," she said.

   But then she realized that printing, laminating, and cutting all those tiny tags would be quite time consuming and could be a bit costly. "If only I already had some little plastic tags that I could just insert a label into and attach to my wire shelves," she said.

   And then she had a third epiphany.  "I have oodles of extra labels from the hanging file folders that I use in my filing cabinet.  Maybe those will work."  And they did!

She went to her computer and typed up the names of the foods she had.  Then she cut them out and slid them into the plastic holders.  But what she did next was the real ingenious thing. 

She slid the labels in between the wires on her shelf and they stayed--no tape or ties or anything!

Now her pantry is neat and tidy.  And she can always find what she needs for her recipe and can always see when its time to pick an item up at the grocery store.  

And she and her pantry lived happily ever after.

THE END

---The Tiff-girl

Painted Dresser Revamp!

Here's another simple dresser refinishing project.

My husband's bachelor dresser needed a makeover in a serious way. It was brown. It was ugly. It was water damaged.

You see? Ugly.

Time to refurbish that dresser! Elephant Gray was the paint color choice, with accents of Brilliant White. With a little PINspiration (which my husband really liked), I chose to add a white pinstripe around the drawers and top. 

This was seriously SO easy! Paint it your solid color (gray). Once it dries, tape off some squares and paint them white.

And there's the finished beauty. I love it. I love, love, love it.

Next up: MY Dresser :)

Happy DIYing!  

~Jannie

A Bouquet of Freshly Cut Hearts!

Here's a fun, easy craft idea you can do with your kids for Valentine's day... Make a bouquet of freshly cut hearts! Simply cut hearts out of differently colored and patterned papers, then make 2 slices in the centers.

Slide the hearts onto a skewering stick. Repeat until you have enough hearts and sticks to make a full bouquet. You can also tape together some of the skewers to make some hearts taller than others. We made several of each. You could also use popsicle sticks, or make a miniature bouquet with toothpicks.

Place them in a vase (if you stab the skewers into styrofoam and put it at the bottom of the vase, the hearts stay put, but it isn't necessary) and put them out on display! Add a little note from little hands, and you're done. :)

They could be used for your child's class valentine party, a teacher's gift - or in our case, a fun surprise for Daddy or Grandma. These are also a great little idea for simple home decorating.

Happy Valentine's Day y'all!

Pot Rack from Art?

YES!! 

Go to your favorite home decor store 

and buy 1-2 metal wall-art pieces.

If you buy two, bolt them together.  

Hang from "s" hooks and chain segments.

Make sure you use ceiling anchors for your eyebolts 

to secure them. 

Use more "s" hooks to hang the pots.

And Voila! 

POT RACK!!

I'd been wanting a pot rack since I moved in, but I couldn't find exactly the right one. I wanted a HUGE pot rack, but it seemed that all the the ones I could find were tiny. As you can see, I have a substantial island in my kitchen, and I needed a pot rack to match.

 So, the idea came to me that I needed to look beyond the kitchen to find my solution. And there it was... staring me in the face.

Wall Art = Pot Rack

I absolutely love it, and use it every day!

Easy and Inexpensive Window Valence

I came across these adorable little gift bags at the store one day and I thought they went perfectly with the theme and color scheme that I am doing in my little girl's room:flowers in pinks and greens. So I bought a few bags. I also had several cardboard boxes just laying around. They had held picture frames so they were all the same size:

about 9" X 13" and 2" deep.

Then my glue gun and I sat down and got to work

and this is what we came up with:

First, I glued several boxes together end to end. Then I cut one box in half and glued a half on each end perpendicular to my box chain. Then I unfolded the bags and glued them around the boxes. I covered the end caps with tissue paper and added a few ribbons to smooth out the seam lines. Then I poked a hole in each end and slid the curtain rod through.

Because it is so light weight, the curtain rod is strong enough to hold the valence up on its own and I didn't have to punch any new holes in the wall to hang it up.

Little Girl's Mirror Makeover

I got this mirror from a friend... it was headed to the thrift store, but it needed rescuing! Besides, I knew a little girl that needed a mirror, and this was small enough that it would work for her.
 

I removed the ribbon - it was tired.

Then I hit up the dollar store. They sell these awesome giant flowers for a buck. So I bought 5. After I took them apart, they easily made 10 beautiful flowers. With the help of my friend the hot-glue-gun, the flowers were permanently attached to the frame.

But it needed a little *bLiNg* - so I bought some giant gems for the centers. At first, I was disappointed that the store didn't have round gems, but now I'm glad. The square middles offset all the roundness of the mirror and give it a spunkier look.

And tada! And my inexpensive little decoration got hung in her room.

 It was a fun little idea. Simple really. And I think it was a winner. :-)

~Jannie