Shabby Chic French Dresser Makeover

Today I’m sharing my shabby chic French dresser makeover. Way back when I posted 11 Things to Buy at a Thrift Store, I included a photo of a French dresser I had just picked up at my favorite little thrift store at the time (we’ve since moved and I now have a few new favorites). I promised a post on the flip, so here it is. Sorry it took a little while.

Here’s the before:

When I saw this beauty, I just knew I had to snatch it up before anyone else did. It was only $39.99 so, in other words, a great deal. It wasn’t really in too bad of shape, either. However, it did have a few dings, holes, and smalls pieces of missing veneer, but nothing I couldn’t easily fix–plus, I really wanted to transform this piece into the shabby chic, French beauty I knew it wanted to be, so its flaws weren’t much of an issue.

I started my project by filling a spray bottle with soapy water and cleaning the entire piece. After the dust and grime were removed, I filled in the missing veneer, dings, and holes with wood filler and then took off the doors and hardware.

Once the wood filler was dry, I sanded it down to match the dresser and started taping off areas around the drawers.

Note: I decided to use Annie Sloan chalk paint which doesn’t require your piece of furniture to be primed beforehand.

In order to give this dresser a French look, I wanted to paint it two tone with the body one color and the drawers another, then do stripes on the door fronts. I love stripes.

I decided to go with Annie Sloan’s ‘Duck Egg Blue’ for the body, and her ‘Old White’ for the drawers.

Note: I believe this version of ‘Old White’ has been discontinued and there’s a new color now available that doesn’t have any yellow undertones.

I snapped the above photo ⇑ as the paint was drying.

In all, I used about three coats of paint to cover this pretty lady. Once I finished the body and drawers, I got to work on the stripes for the doors. I started by painting the doors in Old White (again using three coats), and once dry, used blue painter’s tape to create stripes.

I painted the stripes Duck Egg Blue.

Once the paint was dry, I lightly sanded the entire piece with a fine-grit sanding sponge to create a smooth finish. Then I went over the piece again with a slightly grittier sanding sponge, lightly distressing the dresser in places that it would wear naturally to get a shabby chic, French-antique look.

Once the dresser was distressed to my liking, I cleaned off all the sanding dust and went to work sealing the entire piece with Annie Sloan’s Soft Clear Wax.

And here’s the reveal…

This beautiful piece sits in my ultra-feminine master bedroom and brings a touch of France to my life every single day. I am in love with it and absolutely adore the way it turned out.

Here’s a list of products I used: