DIY Union Jack Dresser

For our new apartment, Mr. Lovely and I wanted a dresser with a little personality. We looked high and low — furniture stores, estate sales, flea markets. But we just couldn’t find one that was right, so you can see where this is going. DIY time! This little baby takes some work but the payoff is major. You’ll need:

• Zinsser Primer
• three shades of latex paint
• small foam paint rollers
• painter’s tape
• dresser and knobs

When we saw this inspiration, we knew what we wanted to do. But instead of finding a used dresser and having to sand it down, we got a super-affordable raw wood one from Ikea.

For starters, two coats of primer went on the whole thing. I found that thin, even coats work the best; don’t let it get too thick.

The base color should follow. I painted the entire dresser blue, drawers and all. I probably could have saved a little painting and figured out where the stripes were going to be to avoid painting those portions blue, but this just seemed a bit easier.

After the whole dresser got a base coat, Mr. Lovely helped me tape off the borders for the large white stripes. I’d love to be able to give you a magical formula for how to measure the stripes, but each dresser’s dimensions will make them vary. We did, however, find this article super-helpful; it’s a diagram of the exact dimensions and measurements for the Union Jack.

The final step was to tape off the stripes for the smaller green lines, obviously letting everything dry in between. The good news about this project is that the painting time gets shorter and shorter with each step; just stay patient and go slowly. Also, when you’re peeling off your painter’s tape, it seems to go a little better if you take it off when the paint is still slightly wet. The drier it is, the less clean the peeled edges are.

The knobs we chose were these by Martha Stewart for Home Depot. I’m pretty stoked with how it all turned out! It’s definitely a statement piece — now we just have to figure out the rest of the bedroom around it. xoxo