Hello friends! We have been hard at work on the country house and that has really taken priority over blogging about it, per normal. I did this project back in Dec / Jan over the holiday break.
I have been trying to stick to a budget in furnishing and decorating the house. As of this writing, I am $18 under the budget based on estimates for all the purchases so far, so I think we’ve done pretty well! This type of project is one of the ways that we are being creative in sticking with the budget. We needed a dresser for our bedroom but I was hesitant to buy a cheaply made one because nothing would annoy me and Mike more than having drawers that don’t work well. The cheapest dressers I could find that had an ok style and had decent quality were in the $800 range which was just too expensive. So I embarked on this Ikea hack that I saw on Pinterest! The Ikea Tarva dresser comes in unfinished, solid pine pieces - it was around $300 at the time that we bought it and came in a bunch of pieces below.
It came with pine round knobs but I knew I didn’t want to use those in order to give it a more expensive look. The wood was mostly fine but there was a scratch or two that I wanted to smooth out. So for both of those reasons, I started out with some wood filler. I like this kind below because it goes on a pink color but you can tell it is dry but when it turns to more of a brown color.
I set up a little sanding station and sanded some of the rough bits. Looking back now, I should have done a better job sanding, maybe with a palm sander. But it’s fine as it’s just for me and Mike!
Then I used some wood conditioner which This Old House recommends as it is supposed to make the stain go in more evenly.
The wood was very thirsty and soaked it right up.
Here is the stain that I used:
You can see how much richer the wood looks in this before and after. Also notice that I opened the window cuz the fumes were
STRONG.
I finished with a coat of polyeurathane, put the pieces together according to Ikea instructions, and added different drawer pulls. And voila!
And now…a puppy picture.
We found a park with a little lake nearby so took Thambi out for some fresh air. He loves to hop on tree trunks!
