A Campaign for Hacked Ikea Dressers

I have another dresser to introduce to you.

And NOW, an obligatory assault to the eyes:

Ikea laminate furniture in its full glory. 

Complete with a grad student apartment context and what appears to be a small pharmacy crammed onto the surface. Aaah, please make it stop!!

The sheer magnitude of improvement almost disturbs me.

I became aware of campaign furniture from....Pinterest. The look subtly masculine, yet chic. Campaign furniture was originally made for travel, specifically army travel. The UK Army and Navy manufactured a lot of this furniture in the late 19th to early 20th century, as reported by Wikipedia.  Now I, too, have my own little piece of history, and it houses a little birch Ikea dresser beneath its satiny grey exterior. 

Here's a brief list of items I procured from trusty Home Depot to make my vision come to life:

Brass corners ($2.50/pk x 4 pks = $10): to be completely honest, I'm not even sure what is the original intention of this product. 

They can't possibly be made for the sole purpose of creating campaign-inspired furniture?

Behr satin finish paint "Creek Bend" ($13): this color is the It color right now for interior decorating. It's so hot, I'm afraid it will evaporate and I'll be left with a birch dresser again. Worst. Nightmare. Ever.

Oh, please also refer to my last dresser adventure wherein I laud the merits of Zinsser Oil-Based Primer. This product gave me the support and confidence I needed to see this silly project through to the end. I would like to thank it for my Lifetime Dresser Painting Achievement Award.

Cup pulls ($4 x 4 = $16): At first I was angry that this cup pull did not come in brass at the store. Online there were so many finish choices (copper, brass, nickel, polished nickel), my head was spinning (or was that the paint fumes?). But I wanted so badly for my dresser vision to come to fruition that I just Went For It. I think it was a good move. The mixed metal look adds some interest.

After one coat of primer (applied with a roller, then smoothed over with a foam brush), I applied two coats of Creek Bend (grey paint). I painted the whole thing with a foam brush---it created a much smoother texture than my last dresser which I painted with the roller.  The roller left all sorts of ridiculous fuzzies onto the paint.  A detailed discussion of fuzzies is probably not good for my sanity.

Poor Mike drilled all the holes for the brackets and pulls. At least he didn't have to do them by hand!

I think it looks like a treasure chest! Ahoy matey, what bounty lurks beneath! (Actually nothing right now, as we need to pack for our move in less than 2 weeks!!!)

I may be MIA again for a while, as I have to move to another city, go on vacation to NOLA, transform into a pulmonary & critical care medicine fellow, and then take my medicine boards.

*explode*