I am finally here to post about some nursery progress.
Let’s talk furniture.
We didn’t buy the full matching set of furniture for Kenley’s nursery
and decided to piece different items together. That worked out well,
so we figured we do the same with this nursery.
Obviously, the crib and glider would be moved to the new room,
but we needed a dresser/changing table since Kenley would be keeping hers.

I had my eyes set on the Hemnes dresser at IKEA and even saw one in the As Is section
for $100 off. But, I left defeated since we had taken my car that day, and not the truck.
We were worried about how big it would look in the room and
I knew it was probably more than we wanted to spend on a dresser,
so we got to work searching Craigslist for something.
This is the beauty we found…

We paid $75 for this piece of crap-o-la, but it was on our side of town,
so there was minimal travel / pick up time to get there and I’m all about convenience.

As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to do ombre.
I found some inspiration on Pinterest, here and here, and of course,
on everyone’s favorite, Young House Love here and here.
I figured it shouldn’t be too hard, especially since we already had some paint lying around.

I’m not going to lie. Getting to the painting part was not an easy project.
God bless Greg’s heart. He worked so hard stripping and sanding this crappy dresser.
Not to mention, the multiple fights that revolved around this project.
But… once we got to the painting part, it was sure fun!

Spoiler alert: The color palette in the nursery is gray right now. Lots of shades of gray.
As is the dresser.

We painted the dresser itself white, then each row of drawers a different color.
We had already chosen the wall color for the nursery,
so we used the coordinating colors on that palette.
We purchased the small cans of the colors needed.
We tend to use Valspar from Lowe’s for all of our painting needs, but I’m sure you can get
the colors in whatever brand of paint you prefer.
Top: Comet Dust
Middle: Notre Dame
Bottom: Granite Dust

Second spoiler alert: the nursery theme is nautical.
Prior to painting, Greg filled in the holes for the handles with wood putty
so we could paint over them and start fresh. He made new holes once we got in our new pulls.
We used six inch boat cleats for the handles and starfish knobs.

The total cost of the project was $117
Dresser – $75
Paint – $25
Handles (4 @ $1.54 each) – $6.16
Knobs (4 @ $2.50 each) – $10

I am thrilled with the amount of money we spent on the project,
but the real cost came in the time & labor it took to get it done.
It’s going to be a long time before we decide to refinish another piece of furniture.

Even though there was a time that I wanted to abandon this project and leave the dresser at the curb,
I could not be more obsessed with it now. It’s the perfect piece for the nursery,
and Greg did such a great job on it. I am loving ombre right now and so glad we went with it!

More nursery progress to come!