Painting furniture with drawers

When using a spray gun to paint furniture with drawers it can sometimes be a real pain.  I typically like to leave the insides of the drawers unpainted, so over spray can be a problem.  I have found that painting the drawers can sometimes make the drawers stick. If the drawers are real tight the paint usually peels off, so I opt for cleaning and sometimes lining the drawers rather that painting them. Here’s a little trick that I use to keep the paint where I want it, just on the face of the drawers .

Wrap the drawer tightly in an old drop cloth or bed sheet. I pick up old sheets at garage sales for a dollar or less and use them over and over again until they are so stiff they wont fold or bend anymore. This trick works great to keep the drawers nice and clean, but it is a bit time consuming. Each drawer has to be wrapped and painted one at a time. That’s why my favorite dressers to paint are like this one.

All the drawers are inset, so I paint them along with the dresser all in one quick swoop!  After the piece is dried I will then use a small paint brush to paint the tops of all of the drawers by hand, or sometimes just clean them up real well and leave them natural wood (all depends on the desired look I am going for).

Anybody else have any great suggestions they’d like to share? Please do tell!