Do you have a piece of furniture that has been with you your entire adult life? I bought this dresser, part of a bedroom suite, after moving out of my parent's house in 1978. It has had a few incarnations over the years, the last being painted high gloss white. Grown tired of the gloss, it's been on my makeover to-do list for a few years. Thanks to this month's Furniture Fixer Upper challenge, I'm happy to share how I took my vintage 9-drawer dresser from glossy to farmhouse charm.

Vintage 9-Drawer Dresser Glossy To Farmhouse Charm

Today is Furniture Fixer Upper Day where I and five talented furniture painting friends come together to breath new life into six pieces of furniture. You can find links to the makeovers at the bottom of this post.

Last month I shared three examples of how to completely transform furniture with new legs. And the month previous, an Antique Empire Dresser makeover inspired by the holidays.

But as I mentioned earlier, this month's challenge was just the motivation I needed to FINALLY tackle this much-needed dresser makeover. You can see what I did with the matching hutch a few years ago in my Small Vintage Bedroom Armoire makeover post.

Here is what the dresser looked like before the makeover, previously painted with gloss latex paint in Cloud White.


The top, pictured below, had several stains that couldn't be removed no matter how hard I tried.

So here's what I did to transform the dresser

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience so you can see what products I used or recommend to make this project. See my full disclosure policy.

Prep the dresser for paint

The glossy finish needed to be roughed up to give the paint some bite. The paint was too hard to sand by hand so I brought out the big guns and used a mouse sander. For tips on prepping furniture, visit my How To Prep Furniture For Chalk Paint tutorial.

Paint the dresser in layers

To paint the dresser I used my favorite stubby handle angled brush and two coats of Paris Grey Annie Sloan Chalk Paint™, a light grey that matches the bedding in our master bedroom. I'm on a mission to use up the paint in the workshop and had just enough to complete this makeover - literally to the last drop.


The drawer fronts, the center portion of the top, and skirt were washed with Fusion Raw Silk Mineral Paint using my handy square brush.

Tip - Paint Wash Technique

For a light wash of paint, the key is to keep your brush damp and use very little paint. A spray bottle on the mist setting will be your best friend. Start by misting your paintbrush to get it damp and then dip just the tips into the paint. Paint with long brush strokes from the center outward toward the edges. When you feel some resistance, lightly mist the brush again (pointing the spray bottle away from the furniture) to thin and keep the paint moving.

Distress the paint

I know the distressed finish on this dresser isn't for everyone but it works with the French Country style of our master bedroom. With 150 grit and 220 grit sandpaper, I distressed along the edges to reveal both the grey chalk paint & glossy white underneath plus some of the original wood.

Protect the paint

To protect the chalk paint I applied clear wax with a small wax brush. Another option, if the top of the dresser was used daily for applying makeup or doing my hair would be to apply a more durable water repellent clear coat.


Here is a look at the top of the dresser after a wash of white and distressed for that farmhouse charm.


You can see the dental trim on the front also was washed with white and distressed.

Help the drawers slide in smoothly

If the drawers have resistance when sliding them in, help them along with wax! I made my own wax puck for this purpose by melting paraffin wax in a mini crockpot that I keep in the shop for crafting. Just rub the wax over the wood slides and the drawers will slide in smooth as butter.

New hardware

I kept the lovely glass handles from the last makeover because they echo the glass lamp base and other clear glass elements in the room. I replaced the matching glass knobs with these pretty gold ones found in my stash instead.


I found them at an antique store on Vancouver Island many years ago and put them away for that perfect furniture makeover one day. Here I had the perfect piece of furniture right under my nose all along.


The distressing is a little more than I usually do but it will look amazing with our 5-panel door headboard.

Here's what the dresser looks like now with loads of farmhouse charm. I think it has way more personality than it did before. I'm going to call this style farmglam - a mix of farmhouse charm with gold and glass glam. 😉




And there you have it, FarmGlam, a unique blend of farmhouse style with gold and crystal glam!