Minty Fresh

First of all, Happy Labor Day everybody!  I love holidays like this because the main man is home from work which always makes for a much better day!

Second of all, remember a couple months back when I painted the dresser in the girls’ room?  Then you might remember reading that I was on the hunt for some new hardware for it too.  Well, I found it!  Whilst searching through the plethora of hardware that lines a whole aisle of shelving at our Hobby Lobby, my friend Jesse pulled a swirly pull out and it happened to be the only pull that could possibly fit the odd measurements of the existing hardware holes.  I wasn’t completely in love with it but I didn’t hate it either.  So, after searching around a little more, I eventually went back and grabbed three up (at 50% off).  Then I ran to our local ReStore and bought four knobs for 50 cents each.  Here are the pulls I found (top vs. the old at the bottom) getting a trial run before I took some paint to them:

Oddly enough, they do fit in with the dresser and the swirly routed-out areas on each side door.  Maybe it was meant to be…. 

They passed their run even being a teeninsy bit shorter than the width I needed, but a little wedging and pushing here and there and they’re now snug as bug in a floor cloth…oh, and they’re mint.  See?


The knobs I got from ReStore were gold and the Hobby Lobby pulls were oil-rubbed bronze, so something needed to happen to get them to jive.  Well it just happens that I jump, jive, ‘n wail best to the tune of spray paint so I grabbed a can and away I went.

First, I laid all the hardware out on a piece of plywood we had leftover from an upcoming project…
(Note:  I left all of the screws in the hardware so their holes didn’t get gunked up with paint.)

and gave it all a nice coat of white primer to start the transformation.
 
(I have a can of Rustoleum Clean Metal primer that I was planning on using for this part, but for some reason it’s not spraying so I just used a can of Valspar white primer I had on hand.  I doubt there will be much of a difference, if any at all, but I just wanted to mention it.)

After giving the primer a half hour to dry, I gave the hardware a few thin and even coats of Krylon’s Catalina Mist.

I have been waiting for both our Michael’s and Hobby Lobby (the only stores in our area that sell it) to restock this color to no avail.  I finally found it at a Hobby Lobby 20 minutes away – a quick stop on the way to an event and the last can…oh how happy I was.  You can buy it on Amazon but it’s something like $8 a can and I’m way too cheap for that.  I used a 40% off coupon (Hobby Lobby iPhone app y’all) and got it for under $4.  :)

Then after the mint was all nice and dry (24 hours), I gave the hardware a couple of coats of this spray lacquer:

 

I wanted a shiny top coat and I’ve never used this stuff so I thought I’d try it.  It worked okay.  It’s not quite as shiny as I was going for but it still looks great.  Next time I want a shiny coat I think I’ll just do a dip in a can of gloss Polycrylic…the hardware, not me.  Sheesh…

Here’s the hardware now, all up close and personal:

And here’s a picture progression of how far the dresser and its hardware have come:

What do you think?  Better?  Would you have switched out the hardware or just kept and maybe painted the old?  Well, either way, I’m calling it “done” with this dresser.  As far as the girls’ room, there’s still a few things left on our to-do list like making a upholstered cushion for the window seat, whipping up a slipcover for the rocker, and maybe figuring out some way to get up a floating shelf library for all the books they repeatedly rip off their existing shelves, but that’s all being moved to a back burner because we are bound and determined to get this ottoman done and an upholstered headboard up on our bed before baby boy gets here.

I did manage to get a few shots of the girls’ room as it stands though after naptime a couple of days ago. 

 

They were content to “look for the squirrels” for a minute or two… 

but then they were done (no squirrels out fyi) and needed to get out…

so I put them in the same crib for one last shot, thinking they’d love the company.  But, I was wrong.

 

“Just one last shot girls…”

   

And done. 

:)

.          .           .

In case you’re wondering, here are the links to everything that’s made this room a little haven for the two sprouts:  the curtains, the greek key design on the window seat, the mirror above the cribs, the stripes on the walls, the painted-on glass frame, the collage wall above the dresser – hung and filled, the changing pad cover, the lamps and their shades, and the long mirror and its homemade, printable artwork.  Everything has either been handed-down to us or thrifted except for the cribs – Babies ‘R Us – and the small storage ottoman – Target via Dirt Cheap.  :)