Jennifer – The Restyled Highboy

My sister got new bedroom furniture so guess who got the old stuff? I love this dresser and if I had room for it, I would keep it. The good news is that I still get to have the fun of restyling it for someone else! This dresser is still in great condition it just needed to be updated.

I’m not a fan of the original hardware so I knew I would be changing the pulls. I also wanted to add some interest with shading or texture. I started with two coats of Dixie Belle Slick Stick just to make sure the paint would adhere to the surface well. Then I applied a raised stencil design to the drawer fronts using spackle and a stencil.

I found some drawer knobs I liked at hobby lobby and since the bolt holes were different, I had to putty the old holes. For the paint color, my initial thought was a silvery-grey metallic which I applied to the whole dresser and then didn’t like it at all… 😕 I tried painting the trim in an accent color but I still didn’t like it. So it sat for several weeks in its boring greyness until one day I looked at it and knew exactly what it needed!

I just love the bold red color and the “glam” of the drawer knobs! I know the red probably won’t be an easy sell but I get so bored of painting everything in neutrals! I used Rustoleum Farmhouse Red and a coat of matte clear sealer. Then I used black wax to accent the stenciled details and create some shadow. The photos were taken in my garage where the lighting isn’t ideal so in some of the pics the dresser appears kind of tomato red but it really is a bright red like in the picture above.

I got the knobs on the top drawers from hobby lobby but they seemed like they needed a little something more so I ordered the backplates on Amazon. The plates seemed a little too silvery at first so I used the black wax to tone them down some. The inside of all of the drawers is in excellent condition so I didn’t touch them.