Instead of keeping this orange thrift cabinet, she painted it Evergreen Fog for her baby
The cabinet cost $7, and it looked like it: orangey laminate, one broken knob, rusted hinges and woven cane on the front. Hana Sethi first took it for a wall-mounted bathroom cabinet.
“Even though it was an ugly old laminate wood finish, I saw potential in it,” Hana says. She was turning the large closet in her main bedroom into a nursery for the daughter she was expecting, and this small cabinet was exactly the size she needed. The piece itself was never the problem. The orange finish was, along with the way it was standing.
“The moment I saw it at the thrift store, I knew it could be something really special,” she says.
Why a $7 bathroom cabinet could become a dresser
Voir cette publication sur Instagram
Hana’s first move cost nothing. She flipped the cabinet on its end, so the open shelf sat on top and the two doors sat at the bottom. Standing up, it read as a small freestanding dresser.
The harder part was the surface. Laminate has a slick, shiny coating, and paint brushed straight onto it has nothing to grip. It can look fine at first, then chip at the edges the first time something bumps it. So most of her work went into prep.
How she got paint to stick to slick laminate
- Remove the doors, hinges and knobs, then fill the old knob holes with wood filler and sand them smooth.
- Sand the shiny coating off with 60-grit paper, without going through to the MDF underneath, then smooth it with 150-grit and wipe the dust away. “I think that sanding is the most important step so be sure to be thorough,” Hana says.
- Glue thin MDF over the cane with wood glue, weigh it down with paint cans while it sets, and caulk the edges.
- Roll on two coats of bonding primer, letting the first dry before the second. Then scratch it with a fingernail. If the primer chips, sand more. In her words, “the scratch test never lies.”
- Paint three coats of Sherwin-Williams Evergreen Fog, a sage green that was the brand’s 2022 Color of the Year, in a satin trim enamel. A foam roller gives the smoothest finish. She skipped chalk paint on purpose: “No, I do not recommend chalk paint.”
- Add two turned legs in natural wood at the front, new hinges to replace the rusted ones, and delicate brass handles.
- Make the flowers: two-part casting resin, about 20 mL of each part per cup, poured into silicone molds on a level surface. It cures in roughly 10 to 15 minutes, turning from clear to white. She painted them cream, touched the centers and edges with antique gold Rub ‘n Buff and glued them on with E6000.
“I love the flowers. It’s a personal touch that you can’t find in stores,” she says.
Paint is not the only way to deal with an orange thrift find, but it is the right one for laminate. On a $30 solid wood thrift store dresser with a heavy orange finish, stripping and sanding the top uncovered a lighter grain, and a thin blue paint wash on the body let that grain show through.
What a nursery dresser needs beyond paint
Resin smells strong. Hana’s advice is to pour it outdoors or in a well-ventilated space, and she wore gloves and eye protection. She glued the flowers on in a well-ventilated area too.
Then there is stability. Her dresser stands on two front legs, and its back is mounted to the wall. “I am a big proponent of securing all furniture to the wall,” she says. The Consumer Product Safety Commission agrees: anchoring furniture with drawers, doors, and shelves to the wall prevents tip-over injuries and deaths. In a room built for a baby, that step is not optional.
Check the glued flowers now and then, too: small pieces within a child’s reach should stay firmly attached. “My daughter can cherish this!” Hana says. That’s the trick.