pink ombre dresser

Edited to add: I'm linking this post up to Young House Love's Second Pinterest Challenge.  If you want to see the dresser in Princess's room in our new house you can see it here.

Like everyone else in blogland, I saw this picture of an ombre dresser and thought hmm, what can I do that to?

Princess's dresser, of course!  Although I liked the dresser painted orange, I didn't particularly like it against the brown rug that would be in her room.  I thought about painting it pink, but for some reason it just seemed...eh.  Then I saw the ombre dresser picture and thought, ohh....that might work.

And here she is:

The light in the kids' room is terrible, I find it really difficult to take well-lit pictures in there. I feel like my photography does not adequately convey the awesomeness of my projects sometimes.

This was such as easy project.  I got a quart of Benjamin Moore's Autumn Red (yes, really, it was called Autum Red, even though Bubblegum Pink would have been more appropriate) and a quart of BM's Decorator White.  I started with the bottom shelf and painted it pure Autumn Red.  I added some white to the pan for the next shelf, and even more white for the next shelf, and so on.

I had three different containers of color going at the same time.  After I put the second coat on of those three colors, I added more white for the next two drawers and the body of the dresser.  The body of the dresser is painted the same lightest color as the top drawer.

I cannot WAIT to get into the next house so I can finally put Princess's room together.  Two and half more weeks!

Dresser makeover

We bought our dressers at a discount furniture place in Middletown, at a store that no longer exists.  We were engaged, moving in together, and neither of us had any real furniture to speak of.  The Mister had an Ikea bedroom set that fell apart if you looked at it. I had a bedroom set that my parents had bought me when I was 10.

Together we bought a set that was blonde laminate with a slightly mission style headboard, bed, dresser with mirror, tall chest of drawers and two nightstands. (I don't have any before pictures.)  I did not particularly care for the style, but it was in our price range (which was very limited).  The headboard, mirror and nightstands are no longer with us, but those dressers keep on trucking.

The dressers have lovely deep drawers that roll easily. At one point we split up the dressers, using the long one  in our bedroom and the tall one in our son's bedroom.  We've painted the dressers multiple times.

In the last five years the long one was painted burgundy, then chocolate brown, then a different color grayish brown.  Here's a picture of the grayish-brown. (My bedroom no longer looks like this.)

The tall one was painted the most delicious green. I dont have a picture of the tall one painted green, but here's a picture of the changing table I painted to match it:

Now the two dressers have been reunited, and they have a slightly different paint treatment.

The sides of the drawers are beveled, and the larger drawers have an interior bevel as well.  I taped off the bevel and painted the fronts of the drawers white. 

I really like this paint treatment, its got a very fifties/retro look to it.  Next, I'd really like to switch out the hardware and replace them with silver ring pulls.  I am having a hard time finding a plain inexpensive silver pull. This one is a bit too fussy but is the closest I've found.  I'll keep looking:

The end result would look something like this inspiration picture from Aubrey and Lindsay's blog (see the whole post about how to make this nightstand here):

How do people take pictures like that? My pictures never look like that.

My only problem is that I need twenty-eight pulls.  I have yet to find them for cheaper than $4 apiece.  That's a lot of $$$$ hardware.