Dresser Project

When we found out we would be having another baby, we decided to keep the girls' current room as the nursery and move Emily and Addison into our guest room, which is a little bigger and will work well as their "big girl bedroom." Because we won't have to do much to the existing nursery, and I am in full-on nesting mode, I needed a project for the big girl room. Looking on some great home improvement blogs (my current favorite especially), I've found some ideas for bookshelves, reading nooks, and furniture. I've always wanted to re-finish an old piece of furniture, and doesn't this just seem like the perfect opportunity?

So I decided the girls will definitely be needing a new dresser, and I found this great idea for re-doing a dresser that I absolutely fell in love with. I found a dresser on Craigslist that will work wonderfully. It is only about 30 inches tall, so the girls will be able to access their own clothes, but it is still fairly large at 56 inches wide, so it will work well for two girls.

Here's the dresser I bought:

And here's my inspiration for it's future look:

And here are the girls with their soon-to-be new-and-improved dresser:

My first step was to remove all of the hardware and begin giving it a new look, following Centsational Girl's advice using Brasso. Unfortunately, some of the black tarnish stuck with the knobs, and after seeking additional advice, I went with some great stuff called Rub 'n Buff to give the knobs more of a silver luster.

1: original hardware 2: after Brasso 3: after Rub 'n Buff application 4: after a  good buffin'

Here's where my project hit a major road bump. Chris came home from work and realized I had been working with toxic chemicals emitting harsh fumes while pregnant. He put the kabosh on the whole thing. I'm a bit stuck right now, hence using my sure future win in our baby gender bet to get him to finish the project himself.

Now I've lost that bet, and am once again stuck. Recommendations? Non-pregnant hardware polishing volunteers?