Tybee Dresser

For the last couple of years we have had a dresser sitting in our garage; the sister of a dresser I already refinished. I figured it was time to do something with it or get rid of it. So over the last couple of weekends I refinished it.

My inspiration was an older, weather-worn house on Tybee Island. As well as the wrought iron in Savannah.

Following my inspiration I white-washed the dresser and used handles and pulls that had a wrought iron look. This is the dresser before (minus the drawers):

I stripped off the old stain. I first tried to use an orange stripping agent called Citrusstrip. It did not work well. While it is great that it stays wet for a long time, it came off in wet, tarry, clumps and clung to the dresser. I spent a lot of time just getting the stripper agent off the dresser after I had already stripped the stain. After that fiasco, I used Jasco Paint and Epoxy Remover to clean up some left-over stain. It cleans up much better than the Citrusstrip.

I decided to first paint the dresser and drawers a dark brown paint I had left over from another project because I didn't want the light brown wood to show through the white-wash. I wanted a darker look. However, you could start white-washing right after taking off the old stain if you wanted.









After the brown was good and dry I mixed up my white-wash. I used some leftover white latex primer. I filled a solo cup half full with the white paint and then added in water to get a consistency I liked. I was able to do two coats on the dresser with only that small amount of paint. It is super runny so make sure you are working somewhere you don't mind getting messy. Follow the wood grain and make sure to get in any nooks. If you get water spots just go over with another coat later.

 I decided to save some money and use the old hardware. I bought a can of Rustoleum's Hammered look in black and painted the hardware. With two coats of white-wash and spray paint this is what I got: