Goodwill, I love you.

I think it is safe to say that Goodwill has become one of my favorite stores. When I decide I have too much junk, I can just take it to them and they will take care of it for me. When I decide I need more junk, they usually have some great finds. There is a Goodwill on like every block here in Houston. I love it! When I used to work at RECON, my good friend Sheri and I would take our lunch breaks and go to Goodwill down the street from work. That store, is one of the best Goodwills we have ever found. For a while, on a weekly basis, we were buying enough stuff to fill BOTH of our SUVs. We would have to come after work to load up the second car! The ladies there knew us and would "y'all back to fill up them cars again?" It was awesome. I have since changed jobs and Sheri and I haven't been able to go for quite some time...which is fine. Because I have SEVERAL gems still stashed away waiting for me to finish them up!

When we moved to Houston, we sold pretty much all of our furniture. Since it cost so much to move, we've been trying to save and catch up on some finances so furniture kind of hit the back burner...especially when we started pricing TV stands(none of which were what I wanted) and they were something crazy, like $400+...not. going. to. happen. So, we made do...As my MIL put it, this is college style here:

To say I was unhappy with it is an understatement. My blankets were never put away, we had nowhere to put our DVDs and games, and we have remotes and cords all over the place. It was time for a change....I had a dresser in mind for quite some time for this project...it was just a matter of finding the perfect one and completing it. And I happened to find one at Goodwill back in May/June sometime. 

Since I am off work and have had lots of help lately, I thought it would be a perfect time to spruce up this AMAZING dresser I bought at Goodwill a while back. Getting this sucker in my car was interesting. It is HEAVY!!! I saw some serious potential with this guy and just knew I had to have it. I paid $60 for the dresser and mirror. Great deal! 

I had a vision for this beast but it was so intimidating that I was reluctant to get started. I scoured the internet for information on how to do what I wanted. I wanted to remove the middle drawers and turn them in to shelves to put our TV components on! Well, there are lots of before and after pics but not many people did a tutorial on how to do it...and I now know why. Each dresser is different. The drawer stops are in different places, braces are not the same, etc...so a tutorial is kind of difficult when no two people will redo the same dresser in the same way. I had to just look at what I had and figure it out. Luckily, my dad is REALLY good at this and he helped me out! :) We took the drawer glides out, cut a piece of thin MDF board to fit, and glued it in! Easy enough!!!

First off, the piece had to be sanded. My mother-in-law did that for me. She must have been bored to tears or something...who actually CHOOSES to sand something?! Ugh, I HATE sanding. But every furniture blog I've read says that it's a must. This dresser had also been horribly painted and it needed to be stripped.

These drawers have an indention in the center (inside the trim) and I thought it would be SUPER cute if this was upholstered or something so I had MIL leave those unsanded....I can't imagine how awful it would have been to try to get in that small space. AH!

Next up, paint and primer. i primed it with the Valspar High Hiding Primer since I decided to paint it white and the whole thing is pretty dark. Notice my shelves now in!!!:

After priming, I went ahead and did two coats of Valspar Semi-Glossy paint...I can't remember the name of the color and am too lazy to go look so....we'll just call it off-white! :) You can see in the picture where my mom was testing out the upholtery "pillow" she made to put in the inside portion of the drawer front. Also, as I was taking this picture, I realized that I didn't paint enough of the back board and had to go redo that...plus I decided the sides of the drawers needed painting. UGH!!!

And finally....all that y'all really care about...The  finished beauty.  I'm so in love!!! :)

 The fabric on the drawer fronts matches these lamps  that I blogged about redoing a few years ago...I still love them! :)

I ended up putting drawer pulls on the drawers to give the pillow a tufted look; I'm super happy with the results! 

Up close of the drawer. I still have to super glue the pillow down...but I was just TOO excited to brag about my new piece!!!! Hopefully I can get my breakfast table out in the garage this weekend and get to painting that next!!! I think I have a painting addiction... Or, an addiction to the satisfaction I get when finishing a project and it turns out better than the vision I had of it to begin with!

Before:

After:

And a cute baby picture to finish it off:

Thanks to all my awesome family that helped me get it done! I couldn't have finished it without ya!

xoxoxox