Do you have extra bedrooms for overnight guests? We do. Our son and daughter are both married and have children of their own. That means we have 2 spare bedrooms ready for visits from friends and family. We’ve dubbed the spare bedrooms “the granddaughters’ room”, and “the grandsons’ room”. They are decorated accordingly.

The granddaughters’ bedroom is a rainbow of colors. The coverlet on the bed is in varying shades of pink, yellow, purple, and blue. I purchased it several years ago from a local department store. It’s so pretty I’m not ready to change it out.

The dresser in the bedroom is one I painted many years ago. It’s a vintage piece that I bought at a thrift store when we lived in Florida. I painted it lime green and added black stencil details. The dresser is pretty but a little understated. I’m ready for WOW.

I went to The Home Depot^® to select a paint color. The guys and girls in the paint department are beginning to think of me as family. Yes, I’m there that often!

I was debating between a shade of purple or a bold pink. I would also need to pick an accent color for the stencil design. After looking at the color guides and the huge display of paint chips, I decided to go with pink paint (Diva Glam) for the dresser and yellow (Buzz-in) for the stenciled design.

Now that I had the paint for the dresser selected, I headed to a local craft supply store to select new knobs. I wanted contrasting, look-at-me-knobs for that WOW factor. I selected pretty yellow knobs with off-white detail and a matte finish.

Diva Glam was mixed in BEHR PREMIUM PLUS ULTRA^® Interior Matte. I chose the matte finish because it’s a little less formal looking. At least that’s the way I see it! Glossy finishes look great in a formal room, but I wasn’t going for that look in the girls’ room. Buzz-In was mixed in a sample size of BEHR PREMIUM PLUS ULTRA Interior Satin Enamel. I chose the satin finish to make the details pop against the matte finish of the dresser.

PREP THE DRESSER

Prepping the dresser was easy. I wiped it with a damp cloth and removed the knobs. The dresser is really old and the boards on the top are buckled and the wood is rough in places. The first time I painted it, I didn’t do any repairs.

This time I decided to paint over the existing paint without sanding or priming the finish. I grabbed my 2-inch paint brush, opened the can of Diva Glam, and started to work. I painted the sides first, then the front, the top, and the drawers last.

The first coat of paint covered really well. The areas on the drawer fronts that were previously stenciled with black paint were showing through a little. Sanding the black paint off before painting would have solved that problem. You learn from experience.

The first coat of paint took 45 minutes to apply. I started the project very late in the day, so I decided to let the paint dry overnight before applying the second coat. I could have easily completed the dresser in one day if I started at 10 in the morning.

I applied a second coat of paint with a heavier coat on the drawer fronts to cover the black designs from the previous paint job. The black showed through the paint because of the stark contrast between it and the green paint finish. If the dresser had been solid black the pink paint would cover it just fine.

The paint was dry to touch in one hour and I started the stenciling process.

ADD THE STENCILS

I had a cute stencil with bird designs and another stencil with a small hanging bird cage. I placed the stencils where I wanted the design to display and taped them in place with painter's tape.

Stenciling is an easy process. The secret is a very, very, very dry stencil brush. To make sure the brush has the perfect amount of paint, I dip the brush into the paint then wipe the brush across a paper towel over and over until I think there is no more paint on the brush. Then I start stenciling.

I dab the paint on the stencil. I repeated the “dip brush in paint and wipe off excess” a few times during the stenciling process. The likelihood of getting globs of paint under the stencil is very small if you use the dry brush method. You can always add more paint but it’s hard to wipe off big blobs of paint.

I could have left the little birds and the cage just like this but they were a little flat looking. Another secret I’ve learned is add depth to a stencil by adding a second paint color. I re-taped the stencils back in place over the yellow stenciled birds and cage. I found a small bottle of acrylic paint in purple and repeated the dry brush technique. I dabbed the purple paint in just a few places on the birds and the cages. I could have used any dark paint color to add depth.

Can you see the difference? It’s a small detail but one that gives the stencil a professional feel. The stenciled designs were dry in minutes.

THE BIG REVEAL

I put on the new hardware and…done! My hubby helped move the dresser back into the bedroom and I decorated the dresser with some of the granddaughters’ favorite things. The dresser really has wow factor now.