Supplies Needed

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I love that dark green is having a moment.

I jumped right on board when I was pregnant with my second baby boy. I wanted his nursery to incorporate the color alongside some natural wood tones and a safari animal theme.

We had an old bureau that was missing some hardware and was in need of a little TLC. It used to be ours until we got a new matching bedroom set (one of my first #adulting moments in life).

It wasn’t in terrible shape, the drawers still moved pretty well and it was a good height to put a changing pad on top. Who has room for a changing table plus a bureau in a nursery? Not us!

Bureau before

First step, remove the hardware and fill the holes with wood filler. Once dry sand down until smooth and wipe with a damp cloth.

Wood filler before sanding

Next up: paint. I usually go straight for chalk paint and don’t bother to prime beforehand. Chalk paint adheres to furniture pretty well (with a few exceptions that I can get into at later date) without primer and usually no sanding. Give your piece a quick clean beforehand.

I have some inside scoop that I’m excited to share with you.

Home Depot can customize their BEHR chalk paint to any color you want. You just give them the name and brand and they can look it up for you. I chose ‘Backwoods’ by Benjamin Moore. It’s a classic, warm dark green and they mixed up a can for me right in the store.

The most exciting part – it’s pretty affordable at about $20 per quart. Definitely less expensive than some of the well known “boutique” chalk paint brands that can be as much at $40 per quart. In my opinion, I think the quality is great for the price point.

This piece definitely needed a few coats to cover it completely – probably 3-4.

After letting it dry 100% (at least overnight, if not a few nights) the next step with chalk paint typically is to use a wax to seal the project.

Now, let me just get something off my chest. I loathe chalk paint wax. I have done dozens of projects and have never gotten the technique down, and find it really difficult to work with.

I thought it was my only option to finish off projects, until I saw someone use good old polyurethane. WHY hadn’t I thought of it before? I’m not sure, but hopefully this insight helps someone else along their chalk painting journey.

I actually went with Polycrylic because it’s water-based and less toxic than polyurethane options. I did two coats using Mixwax Satin Polycrylic Protective Finish.

Last step was to attach new drawer pulls I found on Etsy. I loved the natural wood and black on the hardware. I purchased them from Best Hardware Store.

I think they totally transformed the bureau.

It’s been almost 2 years now since I did this project and it’s holding up great! Full tour of this nursery coming soon.