Our Beautiful New Dresser!

Sean and I just had a pretty life-changing event: We bought a new dresser.

Hm, doesn't seem life-changing to you? Well, as you can see in the picture above, we were sharing one six-drawer dresser for all of our underwear, socks, exercise clothes, undershirts and swimsuits. It was a pretty desperate situation. The drawers wouldn't fully close. I literally lost a shirt in there that we found when we moved the dresser! It was not working at all. 

I loved the dresser, a mid-century style teak Swedish number we got from Sean's parents, and wanted something complementary, so about three years ago I began hunting. For some reason, years of Craigslist, thrift store and antique shop stalking yielded few results that were affordable or weren't snapped up immediately. But THEN...

My friend Becky introduced me to Era Vintage Shop, a new mid-century and retro goods shop started by her friend, Diana. Diana hunts down some killer finds and makes them available for purchase online. For Richmond-area folks, she offers delivery or pick-up, which is what we did.

I saw this Bassett long six-drawer dresser on her site for $175 and literally bought it immediately after a quick call to Sean to get the OK. It holds everything the old dresser held and we still have one empty drawer to fight over! The old dresser shifted across the room, where it now holds a bunch of hair stuff and make-up and accessories.

 Things that are surprisingly hard to do: style a long dresser like this! Maybe someday I'll get a couple matching lamps or vases and some amazing art to balance it out, but for now, I just scooped some stuff up from around the house. One of my many recent finds included this apology note Sean gave me when we were first dating. It says, "I'm a little clumsy with words." So cute.

On Sunday, I made a quick swing through one of my favorite antique shops in Virginia Beach after a bridal shower and picked up that brass vase for $8. I treated myself to some peonies, too!

It's amazing how a few furniture changes can dramatically alter the room. The long dresser actually makes the room feel bigger, and the added storage between the dresser and our new-ish nightstands is pretty dramatic.

My next project: I think I'm going to blow up a picture to go above the dresser. I'm thinking a picture from Ireland!