Can I just give a shout out to our insanely generous family? When David and I got married, almost all our furniture came from family. The mattress, the dresser, the kitchen table and chairs... We're also the grateful recipients of boxes and boxes of baby clothes from David's sisters. The list goes on. 

The best part about second-hand furniture is making it your own. True story, once David found a little bookcase someone left on the curb with a "free" sign on it, brought it home, painted it and now it's an awesome piece we get compliments on.

We've actually gotten a couple dressers we've painted and customized but I'm in LOVE with how this five drawer DI dresser turned out. I was silly and didn't think to take a before picture but I found a couple pictures of the dresser online to give you an idea of the original state.

DRESSER BEFORE (Pictures Found Online)

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The funny story is during our engagement, my parents drove the dresser to Utah strapped to the top of the van. At the time I lived in an apartment building that had a small underground parking garage. You could drive down the ramp beneath the building, go through the garage and come out on the street behind the building.

Arriving from their road trip, my parents and brothers pulled up to the front of the building where there was no parking. My mom, who was driving, decided to drive down the ramp and park on the street behind the building. She completely forgot about the dresser strapped on top and as my dad and brothers realized and frantically yelled at her to "stop!!" the dresser hit the low clearance cement opening of the underground parking. 

My roommate and I heard the noise and came out to find my family laughing hysterically and inspecting the miraculously undamaged dresser. Basically this thing is rock solid. 

While we really appreciate the quality of the dresser it wasn't exactly adding much visually to our room so David wanted to give it a facelift. He really liked the blue-green color of this built-in we saw on Pinterest and so he tried to match that paint as close as possible. 

AFTER

Also you'll notice I have different things on the dresser in these pictures. I've already started playing with staging things so we can have pictures taken and list the house (yes, I get pretty fixated when I have a goal in mind haaa).

It's funny how relatively easy and inexpensive projects make your house and furniture take on new life and feel more your own.