$10 chest plus free paint! Total cost $10! Super Thrifty!

We stopped at only 2 garage sales so far this spring, I spotted a chest of drawers for $10 and knew right away I could do something with it.

I really needed somewhere to store my vintage lace and embroidery.

 I sure wish I had taken a picture before I put my freshly painted chest of drawers into my closet!

What a pain to try to get a good picture with artificial light and have it turn out to be the color that it actually is, sorry about the glare but I just can't seem to fix that.

It's actually a very light aqua and all 3 photos are off.

This one below seems to be the closest to the actual color.

But...back to the paint job. We have a county recycling place close by where we can pick up paint, stain, polyurethane, bug and weed sprays, deck wash even books all for FREE! 

We stop in about once a week and stock up because we have a ton of projects coming up.

I found a full gallon of exactly the color I had in mind for this chest. It was Dutch Boy and called Hawaiian Sky. Doesn't that sound pretty!

I also found a full gallon bucket of Plaster of Paris...it's amazing what people don't want.

Well, I have never seen (other than on blogs) anything painted with chalk paint.

Now I know I'm supposed to distress the furniture but on some things it just doesn't feel right and this one is so plain that I decided to leave it alone. But I still wanted to find out what the faux chalk paint was like so I looked around online and found that I could mix 1 part Plaster of Paris with 3 parts paint.

(Be sure to mix the amount of plaster of paris with a little water first 'before' adding the paint or it will be lumpy, add a little water to the mixture as needed while applying onto your project because it can thicken a little bit as you use it)

I do like it because the Plaster of Paris gives it some 'tooth'. It seems to adhere well and cover well. I can see it would be great for distressing furniture but wasn't necessary here. 

I found that the Plaster of Paris causes the paint to sand off more easily...great for easily distressing but not so much if you just want to give the paint a light sanding...the paint sands off very easily.  But at least now I have an idea what all the rage is and I will use it on future distressing projects, but I'll stick with my thrifty 'free' supplies. (At $40 a quart for 'real' chalk paint...I'll save that money to buy vintage treasures!)

I then stenciled dragonflies here and there using free white paint (I already had the stencil).

I did apply a coat of wax (already had that) because the paint is 'softer' with the Plaster of Paris in it and it needed something to seal it.

I was going to put on glass knobs but decided I liked the old wood ones.

The before...not bad looking here but it was painted green and blue, pretty nicked up and a bit dirty.

I even sealed the entire inside using 'free' water based polyurethane because I wanted to make sure I didn't bring any 'bad' smells into my closet.

I just love this...$10 chest plus $0 supplies...total remake...$10!!!

How can you beat that!

Now I'm in the process of filling the drawers, I have vintage crochet table cloths in one, vintage embroidered linens in another, it's so nice to be able to open a drawer and see what I have so I can stop buying more!

On top I have vintage goodies and an old chippy white shelf that I am putting more treasures on.

When I get it all looking good I'll post it...soon. 

It really makes me smile every time I walk into my closet, straight ahead is the pretty dresser and all the lovey vintage treasures.

Check around and you may have a recycling center near you....

and if I decide I don't like a color of paint I brought home, I can bring it back and they will recycle it again!

Now that's being thrifty!!!

(I wonder how many times I mentioned free!!!) 

Linking to:

Coastal Charm for Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Green Willow Pond for What We Accomplished Wednesday

Ivy and Elephants for What's It Wednesday