Wallpapering a Dresser

Today on Home & Family I used the leftover wallpaper from last week's wallpapering project to give new life to an old dresser.  I adore this project and see so many ways you can use it: striped wallpaper on a bright dresser for a boys room, "leather" wall paper on a desk, a modern graphic on a white dresser for a loft.  If you don't have wallpaper scraps laying around (who really does after all), you can easily pick up discounted rolls at home stores or you could substitute any other heavy decorative paper.

MATERIALS

- Paint

- Wallpaper

- Spray adhesive

- Utility knife

STEPS

Choose your paint color carefully.  You really want the wallpaper and the paint to work together well.  I decided to paint the cabinet the background color of the wallpaper for a very cohesive look.  I simply took a small piece of paper to the paint store and they matched it perfectly.  All I needed was a pint of paint, so the whole thing set me back $14.00 - not bad for a perfect match!

Now prime and paint your dresser.  The priming part is important if you want the new finish to adhere properly.  Either quickly sand the entire piece just enough to get off any top coat of finish or paint it with a primer.  Now paint the dresser body and the edges of drawers with your new paint.

Lay our your wallpaper decorative side up and arrange your drawers (with any knobs removed), face down, on the wallpaper.  Arrange them in the order that they will fit into the dresser and center them on the wallpaper pattern.  Be sure to note any shapes or designs that you want to highlight.  My wallpaper had a lot of scrolls and a basket of flowers, so I wanted to make sure that those elements ended up centered on a drawer.

Now, without removing the drawers, take your utility knife and cut the wallpaper around the drawer fronts leave around an inch of extra paper all around. You can freehand this, no need to be exact.  You'll end up with a slightly oversized piece for the front of each drawer.

Working with one drawer at a time, spray a nice coat of adhesive on each drawer front.  Carefully roll down the oversized piece you cut for each drawer, leaving the one inch of overhang.  With your hands, smooth out the paper making sure you remove any bubbles.

Using your utility knife (and a fresh blade), trim the extra inch from your paper using the drawer edge as a guide.  If there are any spots along the edge that didn't adhere you can touch them up with a little Elmer's glue if you need to.  Using a nail or other sharp object, poke a hole from the inside out where the knob hardware goes and reattach it.

Enjoy!