When I got this piece it didn’t look in too bad of condition but it was so dirty and smelly! I removed the back and replaced it with 10mm mdf from Bunnings. I cleaned and scrubbed the whole piece down multiple times using a range of cleaning solutions including vinegar, the ryobi cleaning drill brush set was a big help for this. Next I filled in any dents or scratches with wood filler, waited for it to dry and sanded it down, moving onto the body I gave it a scuff sand using 120 grit Diablo sand paper. I wanted a raw timber top so I sanded that down to raw timber before mixing my own white wash together using 50% water and 50% white paint. I brushed that on, wiping any excess off with a cotton cloth. Later I sealed the top with British Paints one coat clear. Now the fun part, I bought some cover stripping from Bunnings and cut them to length to frame the drawers up. I glued and nailed them down. I wasn’t a fan of the door slats and didn’t want to deal with the pain of painting them so I kicked them out and replaced with a weave textured paintable wall paper that I glued down to 10mm mdf and stapled to the back of the door.
I taped around the edge of the top with masking tape to protect it when I primed and painted. I used frog tape on the legs to add some paint detail. I used Dulux’s precision maximum adhesion primer. Next I painted the colour on, “Knapsack Khaki” by Melange ONE. I had bought some dowels from Bunnings and I cut them down to size and used gorilla wood glue to glue them on the framed front of the drawers…this took longer then I’d care to admit! Next step was to stencil the sides of the drawers for a pleasant surprise when the drawers were opened.
Lastly I drilled the holes for the new hardware I’d bought from Bunnings and attached it to complete the look!
