Pic of the Week.

Sunday night, I put the final touches on my first major DIY project—a dresser I keep in my bedroom.

I got the dresser before my senior year in college—it was purchased from Target and I put it together, and it survived three moves with me, somehow.

It’s original color was white, and I always liked how it looked with my bedroom colors of turquoise and chocolate, with hints of white. But move after move, the dresser looked more yellow and less white. It needed a facelift.

My mom announced she was coming into town a few weeks ago, and I knew we could work on the project together. My mom my just be the queen of DIY. She repainted her entire home, redid floors, and is always up for a new project.

While I do love good DIYs, I find I don’t have the patience. I get excited over something, buy the materials, and then once I get going, I just want it to be finished. So, I stick to small projects that only require a few steps.

I knew this one was going to take a little bit of patience, so I was happy to have someone with some experience by my side.

After finding a few pictures of what I had in mind, my mom and I made a trip to Lowe’s purchasing two pints of paint: Valspar Sea Kiss (which matches a quilt I keep on the end of my bed) and Valspar Fabulous Red, which is completely off of my color palette, but I just couldn’t resist it.

We also purchase a can of high gloss glaze, and 10 awesome knobs—my mom was kind enough to pack sand paper and paint brushes in her suitcase.

We sanded the finish off the dresser, then painted one coat of Sea Kiss, followed with a coat of glaze. Next, we painted two coats of Fabulous Red, before using various grits of sand paper to fade the red and let the turquoise show through.

Finally, we put on two coats of glaze and added the knobs. Honestly, it doesn’t look how I imagined, because I didn’t have a clear picture in my mind of what I wanted. I just knew I wanted it to look completely unique—sort of like an old piece of luggage, or like something I found in a barn, yet chic, to go with the other pieces of furniture in my home.

I’m not making any promises about future projects, but I’ve got a little more confidence now when it comes to tackling the big stuff.

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My dresser project even makes a tiny debut in my column for Dig magazine, The Bitter Lemon, which comes out tomorrow, so be sure to pick up a copy!