Faux Apothecary 3-Drawer Dresser

Hi everyone!

It’s Fun Project Friday!

I was browsing through one of the local antique shops in town and found this small 3-drawer dresser. As soon as I saw it, I knew it had to come home with me! So I bought it…

3-Drawer Dresser- Before

3-Drawer Dresser- Before

I purchased the drawer pulls before I started painting, mainly because I wanted to match the paint to the knobs instead of trying to match the knobs to the paint.

Drawer Pull

Drawer Pull

The dresser was already stripped, so it really just needed a final sanding. I removed the wooden knobs, filled in the holes with wood putty, and gave it a good sanding. Once that was done, I primed everything with white primer.

3-Drawer Dresser- Primed

3-Drawer Dresser- Primed

And here’s where it got frustrating… I knew that I wanted to transform this piece into a faux apothecary chest. I did some research and it looked pretty easy, so I decided to give it a try. To get the 3 across-3 down pattern, I had to do some math to come up with the measurements for the frames.

I bought some really cool bamboo-looking trim at the local trim outlet. Then I began cutting the 90 degree angles to construct each frame. The PROBLEM was that I had only purchased three 8 foot pieces of this trim… which, unfortunately, was enough to construct just 8 frames… and I needed 9!

Naturally, I had chosen a trim design that was not one of their “stock” pieces, so I had to special order another one!

Two weeks later, I finally had all the frames cut and constructed. I chose the paint colors to match the knobs, then primed, painted, and distressed each one.

Next, I placed the frames on the drawers to get the correct spacing and traced the inside of each frame with a pencil. I ran painter’s tape along the pencil lines to mask off the inside squares, thinned down some dark acrylic paint with clear glaze, and used a cotton cloth to “wipe” it across the dresser and drawers. Once that was dry, I removed the tape and applied some crackle medium to the inside squares, then painted each square accordingly… to match the frame color.

Inside Frames

Inside Frames

I attached the frames to the drawer with glue and brads, drilled holes in the center of each color block, installed the new knobs, gave everything a good coat of paste wax, and…

Frame and Knob

Frame and Knob

Voila! A faux apothecary 3-drawer dresser!

Faux Apothecary 3-Drawer Dresser

Faux Apothecary 3-Drawer Dresser

Pretty cool, huh?!?

I think the only thing I would do differently would be to use a MUCH darker paint color for the dresser and drawers (oh… and to make sure I have enough trim BEFORE I start a project…) but other than that, I LOVE the way it turned out!

So… what do you think?!? Just CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE and LEAVE A COMMENT!

Enjoy…

Lynn

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