Refinishing Grandma's Dresser {Tutorial}

 

About a week ago, this old dresser showed up at my house. And by showed up at my house, I mean I begged my dad a week earlier when I was poking around in his shed to bring this dresser to my house. And being the kind man he is, he totally obliged.

This was originally my great-grandparents' dresser. We're not sure how old it is...but my mom says she knows for sure it was in their house at least from 1939 on...if not before.

It had definitely seen better days. I *think* this drawer may have been dropped on this corner at some point.

By no means are we professional wood-refinishers...but this is how we chose to fix it. We basically did a bit of "cosmetic surgery" to cover up the damage using the above products as well as a thin strip of wood.

My husband was kind enough to help me with the repair process:
We soaked the wood pieces {cut to the width of the drawer} in water for about an hour until they were somewhat pliable. And by pliable, I mean we bent them and talked to Jesus about not letting them break. We used small finishing nails and wood glue to secure the piece to the front of the drawer, covering the damaged area. We repeated it on both top drawers so it looked planned {and *somewhat* original}. We sunk the nails with the sinker and filled with putty for a seamless finish.

Nobody's more surprised than me {or my dad} that this actually worked.

I filled in all the gaps...again, I like the seamless look. 

Then we moved it to the 110 degree garage to finish working on it {or start, I suppose...that was just groundwork with the repair}. I still don't understand why I couldn't have worked on it inside...apparently everyone else wanted to "breathe clean air" or whatever. Pffft. It was one hot & sweaty week working on this thing.

It got a good cleaning, and then the refinishing process began:

Whenever I've refinished pieces before, I've used a product called "Strip-Eze" {blush}, which has worked great. But, because I loathe wearing gloves when working on anything, I thought this may be a new cool product to try. It was a great product, however, I'm such a moron sometimes and tend to not follow rules. I know better than to not wear gloves. I should have worn gloves, regardless. That guy in the photo on the can is wearing gloves, for goodness' sake.

Spraying the product....I only used this on the top since I was staining it {and painting the bottom}. I purposefully wanted the bottom to stay brown {an awful outdoor-house paint that my great-grandpa hosed down every piece of furniture we have from them in}, so it would show through when I distressed it. It was more for sentimental reasons than anything...like a part of great grandpa's paint fiasco still living on.

The arrows are pointing out the new trim repair pieces. They also show where we filled in previous hardware holes since we were moving the knobs to new places.

Again, living on the edge with my glove-free self. Since this piece is at least 70+ years old, I'm sure I shaved off a few days of my life since there's some serious probability of lead-based paint here. Oh, Lawsy. Feel free to judge my non-regulatory, free-willing, law-breaking, glove-neglecting, fume-breathing self.
I'm baaaaaad. 

I then sanded the entire piece. I didn't sand the sides as well as the top, since I wanted some of that paint to show through. But I sanded them enough so they'd have plenty of tooth for paint to grip to.

After it's sanded, I wiped it down completely with a tack cloth. At this point, some people {as in more professional-types} would use bleach or Oxalic Acid to complete the color- removal process and bleach out any other imperfections. Since I was using a super-dark stain, I wasn't worried about that. And I was fine with any minor imperfections since I was, in fact, weathering it as well.

I used Minwax's Dark Walnut and used a staining-sponge to apply it {don't my nails look super sexy during this process? That's some hotness right there.}. I did three layers of stain, lightly sanding with very fine sandpaper {and wiping with tackcloth} between coats.

Once the top was pretty much done & dried {it took a couple of days to completely dry}, I turned my attention to the bottom.

Again, I purposefully did not use a primer on this particular piece. I wanted that crummy old house-paint to show through where I sanded {sentimental old me}. Normally, this needs a primer...but I didn't want that to show through as well. I used my stand-by $5 oops-paint aqua {it doesn't have an actual name since it was an oops-can I stumbled onto at Lowe's}. Incidentally, my husband graciously pointed out that the original $5 can of oops-paint has now cost us nearly a hundred bucks in subsequent cans of matched paint. We just keep going back for more. Love it. At least I can brag about my bargain for that first can.

Normally I use my palm-sander to distress furniture, but this time I grabbed my sanding block with medium-grit paper. I didn't want to over distress this particular piece {although it sure did that to me, so turn-about is fair play, but I digress}. I only sanded the edges on this one.

I did the next step a little unconventionally. I didn't want brush marks and I didn't want the lack of control of a roller. So, I used a roller cover and held it to dab. I mixed a 1:1 stain/water mixture and dipped my "tool" into it. Then, I dabbed the mixture onto the sanded edges. It was so hot outside {even at nine at night}, that it dried faster than I intended...I seriously couldn't keep up with the wiping process after dabbing.

As I mentioned above, after the stain was applied to the sanded areas, I wiped it up like crazy...leaving behind a faint "weathery" look.

I then finished it off with a coat of satin polyurethane {I actually did three coats on the top...again, lightly sanding with fine paper/wiping with tackcloth between each coat}. I knew I would be using the top a lot more...this piece went into the dining room and I know how hard I can be on buffet-type pieces, in terms of serve-ware and such.

And here she is in the dining room! I purchased glass knobs from HobLob to use on her. If you remember, we re-situated where the knobs went by filling in previous holes with filler.

These are not the original lamps I talked about putting on here...but I found these on CL for a steal and thought they were a more appropriate size for the dresser.

What a treasure to have such a family heirloom in our home.

Thanks, Mom & Dad. I promise I'll treat her right.

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