How to Decorate Furniture Drawers With Rub On Transfers

I bit the bullet and decorated desk drawers with rub on furniture transfers and found I had been anxious about the process for no reason!

This project is a desk I bought at auction a few weeks ago. It is a really nice desk, solid wood and in good shape except for discolored areas on the desk top. Well, you know I’m going to paint it right. After the paint job I applied a rub on furniture transfer to the top three drawers and to say the desk is pretty is an understatement.

 

What about the beautiful blue color and those gold spray painted drawer pulls. Add to that the Patchwork design transfer and the desk is a stunner. I’ll share all the details with you plus today is Furniture Fixer Upper Day and you know what that means.

I bought the desk at auction for $45. I’m having a difficult time finding furniture to paint but I sometimes am able to pick up an inexpensive piece or two at this local online auction.

 

The desk looks totally different now. I will probably get a few comments on Facebook about how I shouldn’t paint wood furniture but I’m immune to those comments. There was a time when they bothered me but I’m over it. If you guys are regular PJ readers you know I paint furniture and that’s why you’re here.

The first thing to do with any furniture projects is to remove the drawer pulls and any other hardware. I try to corral the pulls in a bag, box, or maybe an empty Frogtape container. You will need to keep up with the knobs or pulls if you are going to put them back on the piece. In this case I’m going to paint and use them. There are a few missing pieces so I will be using wood knobs on the top drawers.

Next I put painters tape over the drawer pull screw holes on the inside of the drawers to prevent paint seepage and then ran a length of FrogTape down the drawer sides so I would have a nice clean paint line.

My paint choice for the desk is Beyond Paint, color Navy. I’ve used this paint color before and to me the color is closer to a deep, rich, royal blue than navy.

The Beyond Paint covers really well and the sheen is just right, somewhere between satin and flat. That’s the best way I can describe it.

Painting desks can be a bear. It helps me to lay the desk on it’s back when painting the inside open area where the chair goes. By the way, I’m on the hunt for a chair to match the desk but it’s hard to find one to fit the style of the desk. When I do find the perfect chair I plan to spray paint it gold to match the drawer pulls.

Now that the desk is painted we’re moving on to the Re-Design with Prima rub on transfers. I bought two of the decor transfers at the shop where I have a booth several months ago. Just didn’t have a furniture project for them at that time. I looked at both transfers and decided the Patchwork transfer was best for the desk since I was only using it on three small drawers. The Boho Gypsie design was too big and I didn’t want to cut the beautiful design into pieces. I’ll find a special piece of furniture for the Boho transfer.

There were several pieces to the transfer in the tube along with instructions and a transfer tool (wood piece) to use when rubbing the transfer onto the furniture surface.

I measured the length and width of each top drawer (3 total) and cut a piece of the transfer design to size adding about 1/4 inch extra to the depth and the width measurements of each piece. You should never run short!

The white backing paper on the transfer just peels away easily. That is the first step in putting the transfer on the furniture.

Next I laid the transfer on the drawer surface and rubbed my hand over and over the design until I thought is was all adhered to the drawer.

Then I ran the transfer tool over the edges of the drawer several times to make sure the transfer adhered to the drawer and didn’t pull away with the clear plastic piece. What you are basically doing is transferring the floral design from the clear plastic piece to the drawer. The sticky side of the transfer was adhered to the white backing paper.

After I rubbed and rubbed on the transfer adhering it to the drawer front I pulled the clear plastic piece away. Worked perfectly. The drawer front was completely covered with the transfer. The 4 sides of the drawer front had excess paper where I cut the transfer a little big. I just pressed those pieces firmly to the bottom, sides, and top of the drawer front.

 

I’m telling you guys that transfer design is tinier than tissue thin. It is very fragile. I read that it’s not necessary to seal the transfer but I decided it was necessary for me to seal this one. I used Minwax Polycrylic with a clear gloss finish (find here on Amazon). When I peeled the clear plastic cover from the transfer it looked a little flat so the gloss sealer brightened up the colors.

Now all I had to do was come up with knobs for the top drawers since some of the original drawer pulls were missing. I found 8 wood knobs in my stash and spray painted them along with the drawer pulls for the bottom drawers with Rust-Oleum Metallic gold spray paint (find on Amazon here).

 

 

The gold color is soooooo bright. I just love it. The metallic gold pops against the deep blue of the desk. At one time I really got offended when I saw someone use knobs in place of drawer pulls. To me the two knobs side by side always looked weird. I still think they look weird but in a good way. What do you think of substituting a drawer pull with two knobs?

 

The first decision about the desk makeover was using the transfer. The next decision was choosing a paint color that matched a color in the transfer. I checked my paint shelves for blue paints. The Beyond Paint Navy was the perfect color. I forgot to mention that I had one partially used jar of the paint and it was a small jar, the pint size. I still had paint leftover after this project. Not enough to paint a piece of furniture but maybe some photo frames or small home decor accessories.

 

The transfer and gold accents take this piece from pretty to dramatic. Now that I know the transfers are not hard to work with I will probably being doing more of them. How do you guys like the transfers? if you spend any time at all on Pinterest you have seen a lot of painted furniture with rub on transfer designs.

Please leave a comment if you have a little extra time before you take off on the Furniture Fixer Upper Tour. Just click the text links below the “before” makeovers photo collage for the tour….

Furniture Fixer Upper Tour:

How To Use Sea Spray – Confessions of a Serial DIY’er
Painted And Stained Dresser – Salvaged Inspirations
Glazing Furniture – Girl In The Garage
Decorate Furniture Drawers With Rub On Transfers – Petticoat Junktion (you are here)

As always, thanks for being here, Kathy