My first paint project!

I decided to take the plunge today and paint my ratty old dresser. I've been looking at every piece of furniture I own now, dreaming of how I'll transform it with paint. So I decided it was time to just do it already and stop worrying.

I started with this old dresser I use for my tights and things. My mom bought it for $5 a few years ago (thanks Mom!). It was already painted white and was in sad shape with lots of chips and stains. I figured if I messed it up it couldn't be much worse than what I was already living with, and I could throw it out when I moved to LA.

So I dove in--after reading what seemed like hundreds of blog posts on painting furniture. I bought Rustoleum semi-gloss black paint. I chose this one because it had a picture of furniture on it so I knew I could use it (I'm not kidding). I am sure I could have used lots of other paints, but that aisle is intimidating so I went with what felt safe.

Here's a few before shots:

Even with this bad picture you can see how uneven the paint was.

It also had a few chips on it:

Here it is all sanded down and primed (ps-I have no idea if I sanded enough or even had the right sandpaper thingie. My new motto is just go with it! So I did...):

I got excited seeing it all grey--it already looked so much better! (like my orange toes? :)

And here it is now!

(what looks like a fleck of white is just on the picture, not the dresser!)

I'm really happy with how it turned out. I already have plans for painting two shelves black to match our other fancy one we got for free from Doug's old neighbor. This is addicting!