I’m trying to make our home more creativity-encouraging.

Part of my plan involves providing plenty of art and craft supplies — and making it easy to find things, and easy to put them away! A major step towards that goal was finding a chest of drawers to store art/craft supplies neatly but out of sight (because I become a crazy lady with too much clutter). I had some particular ideas in mind for how it would look; I’m extremely visual, so things have to be pretty.

But it also had to be budget-friendly. So I went searching and found an old chest of drawers on craigslist for $25. It’s probably old enough to be “antique” but let’s just call it old because that’s how it looked. Beat up and old. My mom drove out with me to get it; she’s almost always up for a little jaunt like that, which is one of the many reasons I love her!

Craft supply center: refurbishing step by step.

Ken repaired a drawer that fell apart, and I set to work sanding it. This thing had been quite a few colors in it’s lifetime. I joked that I was turning into the Hulk because I was covered in green paint particles. {Maybe I looked more like the Jolly Green Giant — except smaller.}

The next day, I went Home Depot-ing and bought a quart of paint for my little chest of drawers. I wanted grey, but not too dark, and a shade that didn’t lean too far toward any other color as some greys can do. I ended up with one called “pewter mug” by Glidden. I also bought cheap new knobs for the drawer fronts. The old ones were pretty, but not the look I wanted. And I know from experience that those kinds of drawer pulls make obnoxious rattly noises when you open and close other drawers!

I wanted each drawer numbered. Ken and Lindsey mostly humor me with whatever crazy ideas I have, but Kathryn wasn’t convinced that this would look good. I found a few examples on Pinterest to help explain what I wanted to do. Like this and this and this. She agreed, on the condition that she could help me with it.

I chose the font I wanted for my numbers, and printed them on cardstock. Then I used my handy dandy craft knife to cut out the numbers and make my own little stencils.

Because I know that old furniture is sometimes a little warped and persnickety, Kathryn helped me figure out which slots which drawers fit into, and then we lightly attached the number stencils with double-sided tape.

We’d given it a day to dry in the garage, so we were ready to paint on our numbers. I already had flat black spray paint, but I didn’t want to spray them because it’s hard to control over-spray and I didn’t want to tape off everything. Too much trouble. So I sprayed a little paint into a make-shift aluminum foil tray, and used a sponge brush to sponge-paint the numbers onto the drawers. Kathryn painted some of them herself. We pulled off the stencils, and after the paint had thoroughly dried, I lightly sanded to give them more of an aged look.

Kathryn attached our new knobs, and our project was done!
I’m excited this project came out precisely how I wanted it.

Now I’m working on organizing our nifty new craft supply center, and we’re making a running list of art and craft supplies to buy.

Yay, creativity!

Jamie

Wife, mom, J-ma. Introvert who enjoys good books, sunshine, and authentic conversation. Often seen with a steaming mug of tea in hand – unless it’s lost yet again in the microwave. Read more »