Is there any hope for this bedside table?
Before I get to the Suitcase Drawers, I’ve mentioned my workshop assistant, Celia in our last couple of blog posts, and she’s been an amazing helper. Well I asked her to bring in something from home that she’d like to paint in my workshop. She brought in this roadside find, covered in stickers and scratches and some undesirable words etched into drawers.
Most people might have walked right by this one and thought, “I’ll pass!” But Celia shares my love for finding old pieces and bringing them back to life again, and she saw the potential in this one minus all it’s teenage “attitude”.
A whole lot of sanding and cleaning later, and we have a fresh canvas to work with!
Check out the detailed carving on the sides.
Girl in the Garage Suitcase Drawers Inspiration
I recently purchased “Amazing Furniture Makeovers” by Jen Crider, one of my favourite bloggers. She does some amazing furniture makeovers, and is founder of the blog “Girl in the Garage“.
Aussie friends, you can also find it on Amazon Australia HERE & it shipped to me within about 7-10 days. USA readers can find it at my affiliate link here: Amazing Furniture Makeovers.
I handed the book to Celia on a coffee break one morning, and flicking through the many inspirational ideas in Jen’s book, she came across the Suitcase Drawers makeover.
Along with another image or two she found on Pinterest, these would be the inspirations for her set of 3 drawers.
Tip for Choosing Colours:
Here’s a tip for choosing colours for your next set of drawers. While looking at my colour swatch sticks hand painted in all the Fusion colours, we arranged them to look like the set of drawers.
See how we created the outside sticks to represent the main frame of the drawer set. Then placed a few colours in the middle representing the drawers. Here’s one option Celia came up with:
Below is option two, which is what she went with for the suitcase drawers. She figured you could arrange the drawers in any order, since they fitted well in any position.
Colours chosen were:
- Soap Stone for the outside frame.
- Brooke
- Prairie Sunset
- Damask
If you’re in Australia and paint furniture regularly with Fusion Mineral Paint, I stock these colour swatches as a full set in my online shop HERE.
Celia bought handles online, and you can find similar ones on Amazon here. (For Amazon Australia, you’ll find some here.) The latches you can find HERE (USA) and HERE (Australia)
It was fun watching her come up with designs for each drawer, mark them out with a pencil, tape them off and paint them up!
The finished Suitcase Drawers
Don’t you just love how they turned out?
Staging the suitcase drawers with a simple plant in a cane basket, I couldn’t help adding my little brown suitcase beside it.
I helped paint one of the drawers and free-handed some little “stitch marks” along the yellow and brown suitcase drawer. Stitching was also added to the rubber black handle on the same drawer.
A black Sharpie was used for creating some of the sharper detailed lines on the drawers also.
The Soap Stone gray worked well for the outside of the dresser, and was used again on the middle drawer to tie it all together.
Such a cute little nightstand or side table for a teenage room or a man cave or any room really. What a lovely conversation piece this will be!
This was such a fun makeover and a great job done by Celia. Can you believe the transformation from the derelict piece it was at the beginning?
Want more DIY tips and makeovers?
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