Once upon a time, I bought a cute little dresser and turned it into a coffee bar. You can read all about it here.

When I redid my kitchen (here), I moved the dresser-turned-coffee-bar into a bedroom and it became a dresser again. Our youngest had outgrown his changing table before potty training, thus the need for a nice wide dresser to both house his changing station and clothing.

As time has gone by and the dresser has been used by two energetic and not always careful little boys, the adhesive contact paper on the drawers was damaged. I finally had enough of it, and decided to completely make over the dresser/coffee bar once more. This time, I’d only need to update the drawer fronts and cabinet door.

My youngest is about to turn five, and his clothes are the ones housed in this item. Since he’s been obsessed with Bowser, and by association Mario, for two years, I decided it was high time to give him a cool, customized piece of furniture.

Before:

By painting the fronts green at the bottom and blue at the top, each drawer could serve as a backdrop to a Mario scene. I’d stage different levels with Mario decals (link further down!). If/when he outgrows Mario, if the dresser is still in use, we can remove the decals and he can have a colorblock patter instead.

How To

First, I removed the knobs and self-adhesive contact paper. Then I scrubbed and lightly sanded (just using sandpaper) to get all of the stickiness off. I then measured two inches along the bottom of each drawer and cabinet front, and placed painter’s tape in a straight line across.

In hindsight, I’d have painted the entire drawer blue, then added the green at the bottom after it dried. Instead I used twice as much painter’s tape, as I taped off for the blue, waited for it to dry, taped off for the green, and then had to do touch ups because I’d misjudged and left an unsightly white line between blue and green. I am absolutely terrible at making straight lines, so I’m not sure how I didn’t foresee this!

I already had both a pale blue and soft green on hand in interior latex paint, so I used those. It worked out quite well, since the only thing I had to buy was the $10 decals.

But finally, all the color blocking was done:

Then I just had to wait for the Mario decals to arrive, because apparently I painted faster than Amazon could ship them!

The decals I chose are actually intended for use on electronics, such as a phone, tablet, or computer. But that was just the right size to make a scale scene of Mario levels, and they stuck to the paint just fine. I was able to move them around on the latex paint I used on this dresser, but I attempted to use some on my other son’s chest of drawers, and it pulled the chalk paint right off when I tried to reposition it.

Here’s the link to the decals I used. They were only $10 and I absolutely love how they worked on my project- it actually turned out just like I pictured!

Final After:

More up close photos:

 

All in all, I’m absolutely thrilled with how it turned out. My soon to be five year old was ecstatic, with two Bowsers! They also love how each drawer is its own level and tells a story.

If you want to punch it up a bit, you could paint a different backdrop on each drawer or use Mario themed drawer pulls. I tend to have ideas that exceed my artistic capabilities, so I stuck with the green and blue.

Before and After