Call Me Mrs.Foster: My beautiful new dresser makeover!!

I am SO excited to share this! I've been working on this dresser for a few weeks and I've run into a few hiccups along the way. But I had this vision.. and when I have a vision of a project it consumes me and I HAVE to get it done because I'm too excited to see the end result.
So we bought a 46" TV for our master bedroom and I LOOOOOOOOVE it! Might seem like a huge TV to some people to have in a bedroom but our room is pretty big and I'm blind and I do watch TV every night before bed. So my hubby got me the TV :) I was so excited because that meant I could finally get started on that specific wall in our bedroom. Here's a picture of the wall when I finished painting right after we moved in..

Please forgive the mess :) Don't you just LOVE that gray color. Its Sherwin Williams Gray Matters I believe, and I got it at Lowes. Clicky

Anyway, that wall right there is where our new TV is mounted. The TV you see in the picture is our old 32". Way too small for my blind little eyes. So now its in the guest room. Worked out perfectly.

This post is now strictly about my dresser redo. I wont show a picture of the new mounted TV and wall décor until I'm done :) I have to keep you around somehow!!

I found this gem on, where else, but Craigslist. for 35$. Its Ethan Allen and was the perfect size.

When me and the hubs went to pick it up I then learned that the top was freaking laminate! I was kinda crushed thinking there was no way I could paint it. But since we were there I took it anyway. I figured there HAD to be something out there in the wonderful world of Pinterest and Google that had a way to paint laminate. The rest of the dresser was very sturdy good wood.

So I got it home and first thing was taking off the old ugly brass hardware. I put it all together in a baggy thinking I could probably just sell it at our next yard sale :)

Then I got to sanding. I just used a little handheld sanding block from Lowes. I cant remember the grit number but it wasn't too harsh, I guess the word is.. More fine I think. I just gave the drawers a quick rub down with the sanding block and wiped them with a damp cloth to get the dust off.

I researched and researched how to paint laminate and everything I found seemed like it was pretty simple. Just primer. So I got this stuff....

and I got a little foam roller to apply it. I did two coats on dresser and drawers.

Once that dried for a couple days I painted the entire dresser and drawers the paint color. I had leftover paint from my accent wall in the master bedroom. The color is Caribbean Splash LINK in Flat. I used a new foam roller and I think I did like 3 or 4 coats of this paint. I let it dry for another couple of days.

I knew I had to do add some spunk to this thing somehow and then a light bulb went off! I had this huge stencil that I used on my accent wall in the master! So I just stenciled the design on each side of the dresser in the same color gray paint as my other three walls!!

Turned out AAHHHHHHHMMAAZZZZZZING!!!!

Once it was dry I contemplated the top coat or some kind of protection over the paint cuz I didn't want the drawers to stick or anything placed on top of the dresser to stick and the paint chip off. So I researched some more and decided to do Polycrylic protective finish in Clear Semi Gloss. I loved the flat paint look on the dresser so I didn't want to get anything TOO glossy. This semi gloss was good enough.

When applying this it clearly says on the can to brush this on with the paint brush going ONE WAY or there will be brush lines. Well I thought MEH its should be fine.. Well i should have listened cuz when it dried you could see brush strokes and it bothered me because this was my top coat!!! So I let it dry and then it says to use a 220 grit sanding block and smooth it out? So I did and it ended up sanding past the paint color just a tiny bit and I could see little dots of white primer. I was like I give up. It wasn't THAT bad and I would have stuff sitting on top of the dresser anyway so it wouldn't be so bad. I did another 2 coats of the clear coat and this time I only went one way with the brush and it helped a lot!

Ok next step was finding the PERFECT pulls and knobs. I was really excited about this part. Of course my control freak side had to first look at a million websites and look at a million knobs and pulls to make sure I didn't miss out on anything that was online. No luck. So to hobby lobby I go. My heaven! I find some beautiful knobs for the top two drawers but their selection of pulls sucked! So I was 50% excited and 50% annoyed that I couldn't find them all at the same time. Because at this point I was like 3 weeks into the dang dresser project and I wanted it done!!

So I decide to make a trip to Lowes. (I have to mention, we literally live like 30 seconds away from a Lowes so I practically live there. I mean its kinda sickening how often we go there. I love that place!!!

My first trip I buy these...

They didn't work out because the holes on the drawers were an awkward length apart. So annoyed again, I take them back and this trip the hubby comes along. He helps me pick out these...

The ONLY reason we picked these is because they were the only pulls Lowes had that fit the length of the holes on the dresser. After I loosely put them on I sat and stared for forever trying to convince my mind and eyes that these pulls worked together. I knew, deep down, unfortunately, they just clashed completely :( UGH frustrated again I had to keep looking.

The next day I decided to go with what my gut was telling me the whole time!! Just spray paint the original pulls white! SO I DID! and am I EVER so glad I did! :)