Dresser Stencil Style

Hello Blogspotters :)

Yup, I've finally done a pretty darn big project. (For me). This dresser was free so, by golly, I said, "Sure, I'll take it!" and knew I was in for alot of painting... Here she was BEFORE

Nice big size, 5 drawers, solid wood.

So, as you can see, there isn't alot more "ugly" I could do to the piece, I thought, so I whipped out some citra-stripper gel.

That was the first time I've ever used it, and while it DOES smell like oranges (like my beloved and much blogged about Citra-Solv cleaner) and I could use indoors without feeling like I was gonna choke myself or hubby out- it took FOREVER. This is what the process was like on the drawer fronts. The drawer on the right shows after a total of about 4 different layers of the gel stripper, the one on the right, after 2 layers. I allowed each layer about 30 min-45 minutes of sit time. (Yes, I did take off the wooden knobs and strip them too). So, you see, it took a long time. (But, hey, did smell good, considering it was paint gel stripper!).

Then, when the fronts were stripped down, I painted them a lovely gray (Benjamin Moore THUNDERCLOUD GRAY) along with the wooden knobs and did something I've been wanting to do forever---I made my own stencil (I will have a post about that in the future all it's own) and stenciled a lovely quatrefoil design on the front of each drawer, using a roller and some leftover white paint I had on hand. For the black body of the dresser, I just touched up the black paint with a paint-pen, as I don't know if I want to redo it in black or another color etc.

So here the dresser is at now. It's not exactly where I want it to be, but I can change at will when I figure out what I'd like to end up with but sooo much better than before, IMHO.

So, what do you think?

Thanks for stopping by the ol' Blog today,

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