Hobby horse: Create these colourful zebra drawers

11 Aug 2021

Change your stripes and create some playful zebra drawers. Upcycling drawers into safari-themed works of art is an awesome way to spend a rainy afternoon. Try creating a horse of a different colour with pink Resene Scrumptious stripes or a bright yellow Resene Turbo background. With Resene Quick Dry primer it’s easy to prep surfaces ready for painting.

You will need:

• Drawers
• Medium and fine grit sandpaper
• Cloth
• Resene Quick Dry primer
• Small foam roller and tray
• Pencil
• Your choice of Resene paint – Fleur used Resene Lustacryl waterborne enamel paint tinted to Resene Black, Resene Half Rice Cake and Resene Dingley
• Compass
• Thumb tack and string
• Ruler
• 8 wooden handles

Fleur’s top tip:  Make sure you number the drawers before removing them.

Step 1: Start by removing the handles of the drawers. Sand the top and sides of the drawer body and the drawer fronts with medium grit sandpaper. Remove the dust with a soft dry cloth. 

Step 2: Use a small foam roller to apply a coat of Resene Quick Dry.  Once this is dry, very lightly sand it with fine finishing sandpaper. 

Step 3: Using the small foam roller paint the top, sides and edges of the drawer body in your choice of background colour – Fleur used Resene Dingley. Fleur also used Resene Lustacryl waterborne enamel paint as this is a hard wearing paint suitable for furniture.  Do two coats, allowing the first to dry before applying the second coat.

Step 4: Slide the drawers in and use a pencil to sketch on the outline of the zebra and draw on the eye.

Step 5: Use a compass to draw circles radiating out from the eye. Fleur’s compass became too small very quickly, so she used a thumb tack and string to make a simple string compass.  To get the circles radiating out from the eye but not centred on it, Fleur used a ruler to draw a horizontal line out from the eye.  On this line she made marks at 2cm intervals.  Every time she made a new circle, she moved her thumb tack (centre of the compass) along this line with each mark being the new centre of the new circle. She also increased the radius of the circle by 1cm at the far side so that the lines to the right of the eye were closer together.

Step 6: Once all the circles are done, you can start painting. Fleur painted white stripes in Resene Half Rice Cake, followed by black stripes in Resene Black. Don’t worry if your paintwork around the outline edge is a bit wonky – the green paint will fix it up next.

Step 7: Paint two coats of your chosen background colour – Fleur used Resene Dingley – to finish the front.

Step 8: To finish, replace the handles with new wooden ones. Fleur primed them with Resene Quick Dry and then painted them with two coats of the same background colour. 

project and images Fleur Thorpe

Published: 11 Aug 2021