The first in this "series" is the dresser. I have a musical/literary theme for Declan's nursery, in order to have something that can grow with him and that are incredibly important to as well as reflective of Ryan and myself. So, here we go!
The dresser "before"
It's pretty scratched up, but that doesn't matter to me--I'm just going to cover most of it anyway...it was bought at Salvation Army for $40, which was only $10 more than the price I had set in my head that I wanted to pay. It was even half-off! I was very particular in what I wanted, it needed to be the correct height and long enough to accommodate a growing Declan.
The plan was to use Mod Podge and cover the dresser with sheet music. However, the week before I started this project, our church got chairs instead of pews and didn't have room for all the old Hymnals anymore, so I got one of those! It worked out perfectly and was really fun to go through.
Hymns of Glorious Praise
It's pretty amazing what you can do with Mod Podge! First, I cleaned off the dresser with soap and water on a rag. Then I took out the drawers and removed the hardware. When the dresser was dry, I planned out {roughly} how I wanted the pages to lay and began Mod Podging the them to the dresser drawers.
I put a layer of Mod Podge on the drawer, then I placed the music sheet on top of it, then I put more Mod Podge over the top.
Here is the dresser after I Mod Podged the drawers and did a rough cut around them. They needed to dry like this overnight.
After they were completely dried, I took out my handy-dandy x-acto knife and used that to {carefully} cut around the edges of the drawers to remove the rest of the extra paper. When that was finished, I started on the top and sides of the dresser.
Above are two views of the top. I saved the hymns I know and like for the top and put them in the middle, so I would be able to see them and be reminded to sing them when with Declan...or when frustrated. :) I also waited for this to dry then used my x-acto knife to clean up the edges.
My original plan was to leave it Mod Podged and to MP the whole thing with the hymns. But that wasn't practical in reality and I liked the way it looked, even though a lot of the pages buckled or bubbled up. I think if I had used a spray-paint-can version of Mod Podge, then that wouldn't have happened. As I am pregnant and wanted to do this project myself, I decided that painting the glue on would have to be good enough for me.
After I had the drawers how I wanted them, I dragged them out onto the porch and used some sort of clear-enamel-polycoat thing to cover them. When they dried, I brought them back inside and Ryan/my mom carried them upstairs to Declan's room.
I had to remember to poke a hole through the pages so I would be able to put the drawer pulls back on! I used a screwdriver to poke the holes through the pages, as that's what was handy.
What I don't have pictures of is my mom putting a couple of coats of the poly-coat-stuff on the whole dresser to minimize any points that could be peeled away. She was careful to stay away from the tracks and edges of the drawers so that they would still slide in and out nicely.
What I don't have pictures of is my mom putting a couple of coats of the poly-coat-stuff on the whole dresser to minimize any points that could be peeled away. She was careful to stay away from the tracks and edges of the drawers so that they would still slide in and out nicely.
And here is the finished piece in Declan's nursery! You can see that the changing pad fits perfectly on top (which I was looking to do) and that I have had shelves installed above to hold important "stuff" for changing diapers and for storing decorations. I am so pleased with how this piece turned out, even though it's not perfect.
Lesson learned: use multiple thin coats of the poly-coat-stuff...otherwise it bubbles and gives a less-than-perfect finish to the pages you've painstakingly placed. While I don't mind it, I think it gives the dresser character, I would change that if I were to repeat this project.
I hope you enjoyed my "tutorial" for Project Nursery. Thanks for stopping by!
Cheers!
~N~
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