If you are just joining us today, this green dresser is part of our One Room Challenge guest participant series, a 6-week design challenge hosted by Linda from Calling It Home in Partnership with House Beautiful. You can catch up on Week 1 & Week 2 to get all the details!

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Green Dresser Inspiration

I fell in love with this painted green dresser many months ago before we knew if a little girl or boy was on the way.

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This particular green dresser is actually an Ikea dresser painted with brass hardware, but I was on a mission to find something a little bit bigger and possibly vintage mid-century modern (which is a staple in our household!)

A Mid-Century Find

Boy did I find what I was looking for from an antique dealer on craigslist, and at $100, it even beat buying a new (smaller) Ikea version!

This was a perfect find to become our green dresser because it had a Formica top and wasn't in such prestige condition that it would be a shame to cover up, and it wasn't so beat up that it wouldn't be worth all the effort.

At $100 that seemed like a good bargain; I mean it's bound to get beat up over the years, if his pounding on my insides are any indication then I'm sure he's going to be a wild one!

Hardware

When we found the dresser (my mother and little Haverly came along for the pick-up) I was still toying with the idea of installing brass bar pulls but after some investigating decided against it for two reasons. 1. They largest I could find were 18" and the dresser was 42", it just wouldn't give the same horizontal visual appeal. 2. They were going to cost $35 each, and we needed three.

Seemed crazy to spend more than we did on the dresser for hardware, even though it looks fantastic in the inspiration picture. This Mama still has other things baby will need!

I stumbled upon the leather idea after trying to figure out what I would use for various shelves without breaking the bank. We already had a piece of barn wood and leather strap shelf from the living room in our last home, so I decided that would work great.

Leather? Hmmm.... that might work for the green dresser drawers, and still give that horizontal look we were going for. Inspired by these beautiful pieces I figured I could run a leather strap across the length of them.

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Yet again, I struggled with spending the money, couldn't I make it look just as wonderful without spending extra?

So less than $20 in brass fittings.... and the answer was?! I think so! What do you think?

Then installed the hardware with a DIY template and our trusty power drill; we had one hiccup along the way which I will get into greater detail on when I put together a tutorial for you guys soon.

Painting the Dresser

We went ahead and used some Colorhouse paint from last springs One Room Challenge to create the perfect matte green dresser (Glass .05).

Painting the dresser was easy and we've had no issues with the finish so far. I find matte paint to work wonders on anything that is a little beat up, hiding imperfections like a charm.

I lightly sanded all of the veneer with 220 grit and our orbital sander, used 100 grit on the laminate top to really get that finish off.

Primed two coats of primer on everything and then three coats of Colorhouse's Glass .05 paint with a cabinet foam roller it on.

We have yet to put a finish coat on the dresser due to time constraints but have been toying with this fusion mineral paint- tough coat, wax, or regular poly. Anyone have some good suggestions for us, we're all ears?

The Finished Mid-Century Modern Green Dresser

I couldn't style the dresser much since we still need to paint! But at least I wrestled that wallpaper down and have a blank slate to work from, check out our Instagram Stories for more in the moment updates.

The changing pad is the same as we used for Haverly, I just got a new color for the Nursery. It will be used upstairs and Haverly's old one will be used downstairs. It is probably my favorite purchase and worth every penny, no extra laundry to clean or covers to buy and it easily wipes down to disinfect.