Room Shuffle

My oldest son (my 8 year old) has been begging me all year to have his own room.  We have a spare room that has been set up as a guest room.  Him and his younger brother have always shared a room, and I just figured they would always share one.  I had strong opinions about children sharing rooms....that its better for them!  But I'm learning that sometimes what you think is best for your child isn't always best. Some kids need different things....like my oldest son.  I started to realize that his own room might be a better option, for ALL of us!

So I promised him that this summer we would make the transition.  Both of the boys are thrilled.  So throughout the summer I will be posting the progress of both rooms as we make changes.

So far I have cleared out the spare room, and I found a dresser for him at Goodwill for $30.  It was pretty hammered, but solid and sturdy.

My oldest is a HUGE fan of Star Wars, which will be his theme.  But he told me he wanted Black and Grey for his colors.  When he told me black and grey, I knew I wanted his furniture to be black, so I picked out Valspar's Lincoln Cottage Black, and started on his dresser.

Here is the poor dresser pre-makeover:

  This is after the paint, before sanding:
(I used my chalk paint method)

I kept it like that for a few days because I got busy and didn't get a chance to sand it,  but it started bothering me!  It just seemed so BLAH!!  I don't know why, but I finally came up with something that I thought would jazz it up a bit!

 This is what I did:

Pretty cool, huh?!

It was very simple.  I just taped off where I wanted to paint the stripes.  I didn't measure.  I didn't use a level.  I just eyed it!  I just don't have the patience for that kind of stuff, haha!

And I knew I would be distressing it so it didn't need to be perfect!

This is how it looked before I sanded:

 Here is after:

I used Valspar's Simply Gray, then I distressed, and then I used Valspar's Antiquing glaze.  I finished with polycrylic

I still haven't found hardware that I like, but I think it looks really cool....and the best part is that my son LOVES it!!! So that makes me like it even more!

What do you think?!