Changing Table/Dresser Project

My last post was about the sewing projects that had to be done before Ava came (which she has given me plenty of time for!).  THIS however, was a project that I was a little more stressed about getting finished before she came and I'm so glad we did.

 We got this dresser on craigslist for $20 (I'm dumb for not talking her down even more because she totally would've gone down and it's pretty scratched up).  The only before pic I have is this one that she sent me from her phone.  

 

 Let's just say, this wasn't Devin's favorite project - he's such a trooper!

Painting. The original plan was to spray paint it white (with the pink knobs still).  I think I still would have liked that better, but when we tried to spray paint it just bubbled up horribly.  We tried lots of things:
1. Cleaning/scrubbing the wood before painting
2. Just spraying a bunch of layers over top of each other and hoping the bubbles would eventually get covered up
2. Sanding, then spraying
NOTHING WORKED. Still bubbles

That about wasted our Saturday morning trying to figure out, so we decided spray paint just wasn't going to work.  Devin was about ready to chuck the thing in the garbage because we did not want to put anymore money into it and it looked like a disaster.  We decided to check out Lowe's "oops paint" section to find something we could hand paint with for cheap.  We found this grayish color for $5 that we only used half of, putting two coats on the entire thing! We thought that color would look really cute with the pink knobs so that's what we did for Family Home Evening the night she was due (see my stress now in having her come on time?).  
   When it dried it looked really flat and didn't feel very smooth.  Kind of like a chalkboard, so we decided we should probably add some kind of shiner/gloss to it - that's what we did the next night.  5 days later it is FINALLY dry enough to put anything on it! The drawers are full and diapers/wipes are soon to go on the shelves :)

Changing pad. Devin had an old leather office chair that he saved the back/seat rest from, not really knowing what we'd do with it. Well, we found a use! I just pulled the foam pad out of the leather cover for the back rest and cut the edges to make it the right size for the top of the table. It already had the perfect contours for the baby's head, body, and butt :)  We had what is supposed to be a sheet for a "portable crib", whatever that is - but it was too small to fit the mattress in our crib so we tried it on this and it fit perfectly.  So, we made a changing pad in like 10 min!

  Anyone have any tips on keeping a changing pad clean? Pin It