Dark Green Dresser Makeover

Check out this before and after dark green dresser makeover with a vintage dresser and some green chalk paint!

Get more of the best green painted furniture ideas while you’re here!

Vintage serpentine dresser before the makeover

Here’s what the dresser looked like before! I just love these old curvy dressers! They are small enough to fit in almost any room, and the curves make this piece stand out!

Here’s the step-by-step process of how we painted this dresser with green chalk paint.

Table of Contents

Supplies Used For Dark Green Dresser Makeover

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Prepping Dresser For Paint

First and foremost, prepping for paint is super important to make a paint job on any piece of furniture look good, but also last a long time.

I know it’s so easy to want to skip right to the paint, but man oh man, whenever I have skipped the prep, I always regretted it! For more details, visit our post on how to prepare furniture for paint.

Cleaning and Sanding Dresser

Dirt, grime, oil, and grease don’t get along with any type of paint. So if you want the paint to really stick, you’ll want to remove them.

A good cleaner like Krud Kutter can easily cut through grease and grime and leave you with a nice clean surface.

I personally like to spray Krud Kutter on all over and wipe off all of the grime with a damp old rag. And then I like to wipe the whole piece down again with a clean rag to make sure I got everything off.

Get the nitty-gritty details of how to clean furniture before painting here!

You might be worried about bacteria, germs, and musty odors lurking inside your furniture, check out how to disinfect wood dresser here.

Scuff sanding is just lightly sanding the surface to create a surface that the paint can really grab onto. Seriously, scuff sanding can be a really quick process with 220 grit sandpaper to lightly scuff up the old finish on your furniture.

It’s especially important on slick and shiny furniture, but every single piece of furniture can benefit from a quick scuff sanding.

Learn more about why you need to sand before painting furniture here.

You don’t want to sand through the old finish, but you do want to lightly sand it, enough to remove the shine.

And then the easiest way to remove the dust that you created from scuff sanding is with a shop vac with a hose and brush. The vacuum sucks up most of the dust in all the details.

And then I use a tack cloth to wipe off the rest of the dust that gets left behind.

You can also use a damp lint-free rag to wipe up any remaining dust, but it definitely doesn’t pick up the leftover dust like a tack cloth does.

Making Repairs to Dresser

Most old furniture has some sort of repair that needs to be addressed.

I might be a little weird, but making repairs to furniture is one of my favorite things to do! This dresser in particular needed some veneer fixed before we could move on to the next step.

Here’s a great resource I have put together that shares exactly how to fix damaged wood furniture.

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Priming Before Painting Dresser

Even though we’re using chalk paint on this dresser, I still like to prime it before painting. Not necessarily to make the paint stick better, though the primer does help.

The primer that I use on almost every single makeover is a primer that will stop stains from coming through paint.

Bleed-through shows up in your paint job (sometimes not even until you topcoat the paint!) with splotchy red, brown, or yellow stains.

Anyway, the primer that I use is clear shellac. It’s actually not advertised as a primer, and it’s usually used as a top coat, but it’s really an amazing primer to block bleed-through issues!

So, I sprayed on 2 coats of the clear shellac primer and then let it dry overnight before I painted over it. Read more about the best primers for painting furniture here!

Painting Dresser Dark Green

The next day I painted the dresser with 3 coats of this deep green chalk by Country Chic Paint paint called Hollow Hill. Check out my list of the best green chalk paint for furniture here.

Check out my honest and detailed Country Chic Paint Review here.

I personally love to use a paint sprayer to paint my furniture. This specific paint sprayer that I used on this dresser though is the Fuji Q4 sprayer.

Here’s how to use the Fuji Q4 paint sprayer and my honest review and thoughts on the Fuji Q4 paint sprayer. (Spoiler alert: I’m in love with it!)

Check out more of the best HVLP paint sprayers for furniture in this post.

Spraying green chalk paint on a dresser with Fuji Q4 paint sprayer

I also distressed the chalk paint a little bit after the last coat of paint. If you love the distressing, here are 6 ways to distress furniture.

Topcoating Dark Green Dresser

Then I put my very favorite topcoat in my paint sprayer and sprayed 3 coats of it onto the dresser, letting the topcoat dry in between coats.

Learn all about the different types of topcoats for painting furniture and the different methods to apply them here!

One of my very favorite ways to topcoat furniture is by spraying it on with a paint sprayer. Here are my best tips for how to spray polyurethane.

Replacing Dresser Hardware

After the topcoat was dry, I replaced the old knobs with these dark round knobs. Learn more about how to change hardware on a dresser in this post.

Now it’s ready to enjoy!

I make extra sure to not put anything on our painted furniture for a day or two, and then I am super extra careful with it for a month until the paint and topcoat have a chance to completely cure.

Here’s what the dresser looks like now!

Check out more green chalk painted furniture ideas and inspiration here.

side angle of dark green painted dresser

full shot of dark green chalk painted dresser

More Before And After Makeovers

Click any of these “before” photos below to view the “after” of that makeover.