People (especially on IG) love to show how you can make hundreds of dollars upcycling furniture with just a few hours of work. Well, this post is to show you what NOT to do. In 2018, I spent over 100 hours and over $300 on this project, thinking that I was creating a functional work of art. A dresser that was also a painting! Inspired by Klimt’s Tree of Life.

But when I finished this piece and listed it for $900, no takers. I live in Southern Ontario, Canada – a pretty conservative area. So I dropped the price to $600, $500, $400, and $300. No takers.

2 years later, I had a tall dresser that I didn’t need, taking up space in my 2-bedroom apartment. So I stripped off all of my painting (crying, let me tell you!) and then painted the dresser gray, bought new metal feet, and good quality drawer slides, and decoupaged some of the drawer fronts with botanical print paper that I had designed. Listed for $400; $300; $200. Nope.

Finally, I stripped off the decoupage and just painted the dresser grey. Sold it for $175 – the same amount I had paid for it almost 3 years earlier.

Lesson learned? Know your market!!

Original dresser. $175 – ugly, but solid wood

Patched the dings and scratches

Then sanded… and sanded… and sanded

Bought high-quality metallic paint for my Klimt-inspired upcycle

Painted the drawer fronts silver – then switched to gold

Drew a design for the top, then traced it onto the wood

Painted the design with good-quality latex-enamel furniture paint

Continued the design from the top down the front

Starting to LOVE how this looks!

Finished top – silver background

Closeup of painting process for the drawers – used green painter’s tape to protect the edges

I created my own design for the two sides – Klimt-esque

Traced onto the gold-painted sides

Sides were painted as mirror-images of each other

Cleaned up the drawer pulls with steel wool

And – Voila! a Tree of Life dresser – that nobody wanted

Local furniture consignment stores also turned this down. After 2 years of advertising on FB Marketplace and local classified ads, it still hadn’t sold. I thought about donating it – but figured it would end up at the Dump – a sad end for a solid-wood dresser! (And I wanted to try to recoup some of my money!)

I don’t have photos of stripping off all of this paint and then resanding the dresser because it was too depressing.

Botanical print I designed & had printed

…for Dresser version 2.0.

I also bought new feet!

It was more gray than it looks in this image. I glued my botanical prints to alternating drawer fronts and tried – again! – to sell the dresser. $400, $300, $200…

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No takers.

I thought it looked stylish and modern…

…but no takers.

Finally, I just painted the whole thing gray

2 shades of gray.

…and this is what sold…

…for $175 – the exact amount I PAID for it

– in other words, NOT compensating me for my TIME or the new drawer slides, expensive paint & new feet (another $125).

Upcyclers BEWARE!

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