I bought some matte black spray paint for the drawers and was looking around my area in Hong Kong for some wood stain bout couldn't get hold of any (possibly a lost in translation thing) but tried some Umbre coloured regular watercolour and it worked just as well and I love the final finish of the stain, so that all worked out for the best.
The pullers are made of regular packing string that I twisted together to create a thicker rope.
I started staining the wood everywhere but the front of the drawers. I used a bowl of water into which I mixed the watercolour to create the colour intensity I wanted (I tested it on a not so visual part of the dresser to check) and painted it on with a wide brush. It took ca 45 minutes to do.
I drilled slightly larger holes where the original pullers had been to fit the new hemp rope handles.
I then covered over the parts of the drawer that I didn't want to paint black with paper attached with masking tape and sprayed the fronts with black spray paint, this took ca 20 minutes including the covering.
I took a hammer and hit the drawers randomly a bit here and there to give them a used look and also used a nail to create little worm holes.
My intention was to lastly sandpaper the corners of the drawers but I only had very very fine sandpaper at home and it took for ages to get any kind of result with it and the paper wore out super quick so I gave up. On the picture just below you can see how it turned out on the corner that I did manage to sand down a bit. I really liked the result but had no patience for it so only one corner got done.
I proceeded to splash a bit of red and white paint on it to create an even more used and vintage feel. I accidentally splashed a bit too much in a few places and as I attempted to get it off with some wet toilet paper ( I know...LINT!) I got paper lint stuck on the drawers ... you're probably thinking "I knew that was going to happen". But the look of the lint was almost a bit similar to using the sand paper, so I did this all over the dressers wherever I wanted them to look distressed. I then used a shoe shine brush to brush of the residue and in the picture just below you can see the result of my toilet paper lint vintage look.
This was so quick compared to the sanding and looks almost as good. I might go back and do proper sanding instead at a later point... then again maybe not.
I used 4 strands of the hemp packing string and twisted them together, tied a knot in one end, pulled it through the puller hole and tied a knot on the other side and cut to length.
In the picture above you can see the difference between using the sandpaper (on the left drawer), I do prefer this look even though it was much more time consuming, vs. the toilet paper lint effect (on the right drawer). All in all the project took almost exactly 2 hours which was a lot less than my previous Rast DIY for the nursery.
"Now hold on!" a lot of you are thinking... yes, this makeover idea is not mine. I was so inspired by the gorgeous industrial dresser makeover that Mia from Jilly & Mia did, and after many weeks of questioning how to remake my dressers I finally decided to go with her makeover. I decided on this style for many reasons:
1. It would fit in well with the chalkboard wall I have created behind it.
2. I just loved the way Mia's dresser looked.
3. I could use stuff I already had at home. The only thing I bought for this project was the can of black spray paint.
I have to say I love Mia's look, I even stole her idea for the wormholes (it's all in the details) hers has industrial wheels which I actually like a lot more than with but I needed my dressers to stay put, hiding the nest of electronics wiring that is behind them. Mia also took the time to sandpaper properly and it does make a difference and you should really check out their blog because it's packed with cool DIY projects to be inspired by ...or totally copy like I did.
