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CNN Sunday Morning

Giving an Old Dresser New Life

Aired June 16, 2002 - 08:52   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, if watching the show "TRADING SPACES" shows up on your honey-do list, you're not alone. The show features a staple of six designers who re-do rooms in willing participant's homes. The TV crew doesn't have to knock on your door for this. One of the shows designer's, Vern Yip, shows us how to give an old dresser a very new look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VERN YIP, DESIGNER, "TRADING SPACES": Hi, this is Vern Yip from "TLC's TRADING SPACES". Today we're going to give you some easy ways to remake a dresser or any other piece of furniture that you might have at home.

In this particular case, the homeowner had a mirror that was black, that was sitting above this dresser. We thought, well, they have sort of a contemporary style. We wanted to fresh it up and do it rather inexpensively. This entire project is actually going to be something that you could do within an hour, I would think, and will cost you a little less than $100.

What we chose to do was to lightly sand it with some fine grit sand paper. You just want to do that to make sure the actual primer and paint in this situation will stick to the product. So we're going to lightly sand it. We've already done most of that for you. And what that basically does for you is it provides a surface that will then be ready for primer and then paint.

Now, in this particular case you might know that most primer is white, but we're actually using a tinted primer today. And the reason that we're doing that is we're going to actually have this piece of furniture be ebony or like a dark black color at the end.

Well, go ahead and leave this alone and let it dry for about 10 to 15 minutes. Come back, and we will put our paint on.

Our third step now is to actually physically apply the paint.

What we're going to do is something a little bit different with the hardware. Normally you could just go out and purchase hardware. But in this case we will be more creative and add a little more of a personal touch to this particular piece. The tools that I'm using are actually going to be a pair of needle-nose pliers, a pair of snips, I've got an I-hook and a little washer there and a little nut. Based on the beads that I'm using, and using something that has some strength, you don't want to use any wire that's going to be too flimsy. Otherwise, when you pull on it, it is going to eventually break. I decided the best choice in this instance was 18-gauge galvanized wire. That's actually got some flexibility, but it's actually pretty strong. So that's not going to actually deteriorate over time.

So, making these pulls, what we're going to do -- they're actually going to be more of a tassel style pull. You're going to want to actually close the end and just kind of twist it around a little bit. That kind of keeps the beads at the end from actually falling through.

You make a tight little spiral. Then in this instance you can go ahead and customize the design to your own particular taste. We are going to start off with one of these small pearl beads. Add a larger pearl bead, and then zip in some color here. In this case, we will use this green glass bead that's got some ridges.

Put on our loose side bead right there, and another glass bead to finish it off. So that's actually kind of going to be the final pull product. And then what we end up doing is, there's already pre- drilled holes from the existing hardware. We're actually go ahead and bend this.

Put our I-hook through, and what we're going to do is actually use this to sort of twist this around. Sometimes you've got to fool with it a little bit. Or sometimes you have to fool with it a lot.

I have some finished products we're going to actually look at. This is your actual -- this is your knob, which actually will add a little pizzazz and sparkle to your dresser. And this will actually be your pull. And this will secure through the two holes in the actual dresser-drawer.

So we're going to finish this off after that thing is painted and dried. We're going to actually go ahead and install that, and we will be done, easy and quick.

Well, now that we're done assembling and putting together all our custom hardware, you can actually really see how easy it is to actually install these. The important thing to do is to first go ahead and put a washer in on both ends. What that's going to do is partially cover up the pre-drilled hole that we had.

And once that's done, we'll just go ahead, insert that through. And what you want to do is you want to make sure that the loops are pointing down. Put another washer through the back to secure it. And then go ahead and tighten it with your nut. There you go. Now you've got a nice and tight custom-made pull. And what's so great about this is actually you can make this work with your particular color scheme in your house or use your particular favorite colors.

And whenever you get tired of it, easy to change, easy to remake. Now that our hardware is done and installed, we're ready to actually put these doors back in. And as you can see, we've got a great new finished look. We brought this dresser from A to B and gave it a brand new life in four easy steps in less than an hour.

This whole project ended up costing us less than 100 bucks, and now we can go on with our day. I'm Vern Yip from "TRADING SPACES." For more helpful hints on home improvement on a budget, log on to: www.tlc-discovery.com and tune in to "TRADING SPACES."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And apparently, some of the show's 27 million viewers aren't just tuning in to see the decorating. It seems one of the show's carpenters, Ty Pennington, has made "People" magazine's hottest bachelors list. He's a former model and set designer. Pennington learned the art of woodworking from his dad. Again, he is "People's" pick for one of the hottest bachelors.

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