Dresser Revamp (with fabric and liquid starch)

Over the past few weeks, I've been one busy little bee around the house.  I've ripped up the gross wall-to-wall carpeting in the girls' room and the master bedroom, painted the master bedroom and master bath, hung new curtains, helped put up new closet doors and made a headboard (post to come on that!).  

However, the project I'm most thrilled with is this dresser revamp!  A long time ago, I saw a show on HGTV using fabric and liquid starch to "wallpaper" a room.  (article here) While a whole wall of fabric wasn't something I was interested in, I thought the technique might work on furniture too.   Guess what?  It totally worked and turned out so awesome!  I seriously think this is my new favorite technique and I'm going to be going around liquid starch-ing fabric on everything now.

Check it out...



Isn't it awesome?  I think the cute plaid and the little butterflies almost look painted on, but it's really just fabric that was cut to fit and adhered with liquid starch.  It's so cute and so cheerful and so boutique-ish ~ but it was super inexpensive and really easy!


Check out this transformation...



Can you see why I'm so excited and thrilled with this project?  I got the dresser for just $30 at Goodwill.  I could tell it was a really good-quality dresser and it was in great shape, but the brown wasn't what I wanted for the girls' room.  I primed and painted it white, then added the fabric and wow, what a transformation!

It took me a couple days to paint it, but less than an hour to add the fabric, so if you already have a plain dresser, you could totally do this in an afternoon.

Here's what I did...

1.  I painted the dresser with two coats of Zinsser Cover Stain Primer .  I read that this primer works really well without sanding (because I hate sanding!) and it really did a great job.  It covers great and dries really quickly.  However, I'd forgotten how badly oil-based paint smells.  This stuff really stinks, so definitely do it in a well-ventilated area.  
 

2.  Next, I painted the dresser with two coats of regular, white, semi-gloss paint.  



The girls were BEGGING to help, so I let them paint the insides of the drawers.  Unfortunately, they quickly lost interest and I ended up painting the rest of the insides of the nine drawers myself.

 


3.  Now for the fun part.  We chose a pretty fabric that went really well with their new pink and green bedroom and I picked up some liquid starch.  ( Not every store carried it, but I finally found it at Walmart for under $3).  It's also online here on Amazon  but it's a little more expensive.


4.  Measure the size of your drawer fronts then cut the fabric just slightly smaller than the measurements.  (You'll want it about 1/8" -1/4" shorter all the way around).



5.  Next, pour some liquid starch into a bowl and dip the fabric in.  You'll want it completely saturated, but not dripping, so put it in, swish it around, then wring it out.



6.  Then simply smooth your wet fabric onto the drawer fronts.  Put it on, get it in place, then smooth it out to get rid of any wrinkles or air bubbles.  Because your fabric is slightly shorter than the drawer fronts, you can wipe off any extra liquid starch that is pressed out when you're smoothing out the bubbles.


7.  Put your drawers aside to dry.  It was a nice sunny day when I did this project, so I set them outside and it was dry in less than an hour.  The fabric will feel much harder and stiff once it's dry.


8.  While I was waiting for the fabric to dry, I spray-painted the hardware a dark pink.  (Originally I was going to do them white, but I decided I wanted more of a contrast)


9.  When the fabric was dry and stiff, I used an exacto knife to make a small cut where the hardware holes were and attached the handles.



10.  That's it!  Pretty amazing isn't it?



A few notes:

  • I did have a little bit of puckering of the fabric on the first two drawers I did (similar to what you would get when using ModPodge).  However, once I took my time to really smooth out the fabric and go from side to side, all the way across, I had virtually no wrinkles on the later drawers.
  • So far it seems to be holding up great.  The fabric will only come off if you purposely get your fingernail under the edge or corner and pull it up.  However, if you want it to be extra durable (and not removable at all), I'd think you could put a clear sealer on top.
  • According to what I read about putting the fabric on walls, when you're ready for change you can easily remove it by carefully pulling it up the material and then wiping down the surface with regular water to remove the starch residue.
  • I'm seriously going to be trying this technique on other things too.  I love that you have so many options with all the different fabric patterns and you don't have to worry about seams like you would using smaller sheets patterned paper.  Most fabrics would be wide enough that you wouldn't have a seam at all.

Sharing our liquid starch transformation at:

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