Woodland Nursery Dresser

Another DIY nursery project to share! This time, its a dresser/armoire for the baby’s clothing and other essentials.

I’d forgotten how teeny tiny newborn babies are until my daughter showed me a sweet little onesie from H & M-this dresser should be adequate for quite awhile! It was one that I had refurbished a few years ago for my own “nana-nursery” when our first grandson was born.

I’ve really not had much use for it, since I have a bookcase and a changing table with loads of storage. So I offered it up to her for the black and white nursery. Originally, the entire dresser was stained brown. For my room, I had repainted it with teal accents

and used a vintage map for the door inset. (and yes, the map is upside down-I never noticed it, even after I hung the door and placed the dresser in the nursery : O )

But, that old map print wasn’t going to work for the black and white woodland nursery! As it just so happened, I did have some pieces of Birch Tree Peel-and-Stick wallpaper from Roommates left over from our log cabin room in the Maine cottage. I didn’t have one long continuous length left, but it was simple to cut and piece it together since the design has pretty soft edges on the trees and branches.

Using that, I replaced the map with the birch trees, instantly transforming the dresser from nautical to natural!

Along with the map, the handles-which were teal blocks of wood-needed a change as well.

You know, the thing about Amazon is that if you can dream it-they sell it! A quick search of “twig handles” revealed these silver beauties that could be used as replacements.

One problem: there would only be one hole for the twigs where there were two for the wood block handles. Simple fix: I filled the holes with some wood plugs that I glued into place.

Then I sanded down the drawers, restained and then polyurethaned them, as well as the dresser top and the door frame surrounding the birch paper. Although the little wood plugs didn’t take the stain as well as the rest of the wood, the contrast was barely noticeable once the twig knobs were added.

The rest of the dresser was painted in Behr’s Tin White Chalk Paint for a bright contrast for the wood. So now we have a beautiful dresser that holds loads of tiny baby stuff while looking quite adorable and adding a touch of natural warmth to the otherwise simply black and white décor.