DESIGNER’S DIY HACK: How to make a dull dresser luxurious

“Did you do it yourself?” is a question I almost never get for two reasons: 

1. It’s unnecessary, because it’s painfully clear that I absolutely have done it myself and that I’m at the same skills level as an unconscious nursery-age child.

2. I’ve almost never done it myself.

So it’s a huge event when I actually have done it myself and it’s also not (very) clear on Instagram that this is the case. Believe me, though, you can see it in reality. But if you keep yourself a little bit tipsy at all times, you don’t get too hung up on it.

Nevertheless, I have an anecdote to share with you: One beautiful spring day, way too many years ago, my husband and I bought what we thought was an incredibly attractive dresser. Heavy, solid and our third joint purchase that wasn’t from IKEA. For a long time, it was an ornament: amply sized, practical and elegant.

It stayed put, year after year, devouring all the family’s sins: boring documents, squeaky markers, half-finished craft projects, saved Christmas wrapping paper, grandma’s silver cutlery, screws, shells from the seaside.

After a reasonably respectable amount of time had passed, we had long since grown to hate the dresser while simultaneously realising it was indispensable. It stood there for a long time, like a thorn in my side. The design was outdated, the paint scuffed, the fittings dull.

Then the day came when I sat down on the floor next to the dresser to avoid the spring sun glaring on my laptop screen, noted the leftover can of paint from my showroom and – as if in a trance – grabbed the brush next to it, dipped it in the paint and started painting with my left hand while I was still adjusting a mood board on the computer with my right.

After coming a long way in the planning stage, it was this unconscious decision to get started on transforming the dresser that was needed. I’ve always been unabashedly in love with old doors with circular ornaments, so to create a similar aesthetic for the dresser, I thought that a small ceiling rose made of lightweight material could be painted, glued to the dresser and fitted with round knobs. If it turned out really bad, I could always remove the ornaments and deny any rumours that I was giving my dresser a makeover! If I’d been into DIY, I’d have probably given you the following instructions for a similar project:

Sand, clean with sugar soap, prime. Fortunately, some people learn a great deal from their mistakes. For example, they might heed the recommendation to do the groundwork properly. I enthusiastically ignored it and have once again noted that the people who learned this are still correct.

Order matching ornaments from D-COR and paint them in the same colour as the dresser.

Drill holes for the fittings in the centre of each drawer and in the centre of the ceiling rose.

Attach the ornaments to the drawers. My ‘natural inclination’ for this type of project obviously led me to take shortcuts: Was glue necessary – couldn’t you use tape instead? Chewing gum? Syrup? However, these shortcuts are unfortunately just a waste of precious time, as gluing something with syrup is just as cumbersome as using ordinary glue. So you might as well use ordinary glue.

Now that you have a new dresser and are looking for more things to spruce up, you may be asking yourself the question,

Well, it’s something you rarely realise you really need until you’ve built one. A party pantry takes care of all your usual party supplies: Shelves for fine china, glasses and drink accessories, a bench for preparing snacks and wrapping presents, and cupboard doors that hide a fridge and 3,500 candles that your child forced you to buy to help pay for their school trip. Now, as I said, this is a party pantry, and as you know, there are few things that can kill off a lively party atmosphere as quickly as smooth, dull cupboard doors. Luckily, you can glue D-COR ceiling roses onto the doors in this project too! The doors were then furnished with decorative moulding in a mirror frame all the way around.

The great thing about this project is that you do it in almost exactly the same way as the dresser I just told you about. But this time you might have actually learned something and do the proper groundwork without even thinking about whether you may as well glue it with syrup.

Looking for more DIY tips? In that case you definitely should not follow my Instagram account @tretowdeco . That’s where you’ll mostly see me decorating my clients’ homes, and that’s something I’m much better at.