Crack-house Dresser Re-do!!

So a few weeks ago I saw this dresser listed on CL. Hubs went by and took a look at it for me. It was wayyyyyy beyond needing some TLC. The lady said she got it from some crack-house with the intention of refinishing it! Um, don't think so! Hubs paid 15 bucks for this beaut. 

                   I honestly almost said, "forget it" and trashed this hunk. 

                                   So glad I didn't! I'm in love with how these colors turned out!

When he got it home I thought, "Good Lord! What the heck can I do with this?" Most of the guides of the drawers were gone and the bottom drawer fell apart when I took it out. 

There was some sort of melted rubber stuck to the top.

Maybe used as a lion scratching post???? WTH??

I had to completely re-glue the entire bottom drawer.  And for whatever reason, the front legs were different. Someone had shaved one side, and left the other original. We had to do some surgery to make them match.

 So after a ton of sanding,
I uncovered a somewhat intact
wood top! Yay! It appeared to be a Honduran Mahogany wood, which has a nice reddish undertone to it.  I refinished the top with a gel stain and sealed it with a shellac base seal-coat.

 Here's the natural wood color. It wasn't in good enough shape to leave it, so I decided on very distressed look.  I've been wanting to try some different colors and I figured since I only spent 15 bucks, if it didn't work out, no biggy!  So I made my own chalk paint again and used Martha Stewart's "yam" mixed with some other orange and golden yellow. I just coated the whole thing with that color and then went over it in MS "Hosta" mixed with "plumage" and a little green.  I used a sanding block and went to town.

 Everything got finished with Minwax dark wax, which really deepened the colors and brought out the wood tones beautifully!

Her front feet match now! 

I lightly dry brushed the top with the paint (I had already refinished and applied a seal coat)

Urban Outfitter knobs

I couldn't reuse the original hardware because there wasn't enough.
So, I had to fill in the all of the inner holes and re-drill in order to accommodate
these pulls I got from Hobby Lobby. 

And to think I was actually considering just throwing this away!  Never think the impossible      can't be accomplished! 

I had fun doing this one!