Racing Flag Dresser

Last summer I scoured the local yard sales looking for a dresser for the boys' room.  I wanted something cheap and something I could sand down and paint.  The entire room would  be based off the dresser.  I found a great one for just $10 and snatched it up.  Minus the top, here's what I started with.

Awesome for $10!  It had almost a pinky tone to it.  I sanded it down real well with the sander I got for Christmas and then painted 2 coats of Black high gloss paint.  I decided I wanted a room around modes of transportation without being construction type stuff.  When I looked at this dresser I saw a racing flag.  I wanted it all black and already had the high gloss on hand from my desk redo so I went with it.  In fact, because I used paint from previous projects, the whole project only totaled the original $10 I paid.  With that price tag, even if I royally jacked it up, I would've been ok with it.  

Then began the work on the dresser top.  

1.  Sand. Sand. Sand.  

2.  I painted my white coat first.  (pay no mind to the Christmas light sheets.  They are my drop cloth)

3.  Next I needed to make my stripes.  I wanted them to be perfectly even without needing to measure a bunch.  I laid one strip down the edge of the dresser.  I laid a second one down right next to it to ensure this one was straight.  I did a third directly next to that one.

4.  I pulled up the middle strip exposing a white line between two strips of tape.  I did this all the way across the top.

1.  I repeated the same steps going in the opposite direction.  Lay three down touching and then pull up the middle strip.
2.  End product
3.  Same as 2, different angle
4.  Paint with black.  Took several coats

Now, I didn't take pics of the next few steps because there was some debate whether I was going to do the next steps.  In the end, I knew it had to be done, but quickly.  After you pull the paint tape off it looked plaid, not like a racing flag.  You can see above in picture 3 that there are whole lines of blue.  When you pull the tape off, it was just one big column of white.  I needed the middle black square for the racing flag look. I put painters tape covering the rows of black squares so that white squares were showing.  I needed to paint the middle square black.  I did.  Here's how it turned out.

For a $10 project, I'm totally happy with it!  Pics of the whole room coming soon.  

(linking up to several parties, Making the World Cuter, being one of them!