Baby Project 29,037,883...ANTIQUE DRESSER

Between now and whenever I'm no longer able to bend/sit/reach/crouch/jump/crawl/lift/pull/squat...I plan to complete one project per week at our house. And last week that project was refinishing a small dresser that my Aunt and G'ma gave us.

I've heard a couple stories about this dresser. At first my dad thought it was his step-dad's when he was little but he didn't really remember seeing it much growing up. Aunt Marcia said it was definitely an antique but wasn't sure where it came from. G'ma set everyone straight and said it was just a dresser that Henry found in an old farmhouse he was cleaning out and brought home...good enough for me. I'm calling it a family heirloom.

Apparently this dresser has been through a house fire. It also sustained a number of 'refinishes', including a process called 'antiquing' in the 70's, which was when people applied a super glossy dark stain/finish...and essentially ruined everything antique about the piece they were 'refinishing.' My aunt used the dresser for a while in high school and college, it's been moved around a ton...and a few weeks ago my dad brought it back from Des Moines so I could add another lovely project to my lengthy list.

Fun fact...it also came with an attachable wood framed mirror, but the glass is cracked. That project is going to be a little more expensive because I'll have to find someone to replace the glass in the exact ornate shape it's in...for now it's being stored in the basement.

So last Monday at about 4:30, I decided to start scraping and sanding the dresser...because how long could that possibly take?

THREE HOURS. It took three hours.

BEFORE

What's funny is that this project seemed to go really fast. When you've spent a month without a kitchen while you refinish sanding and staining and sealing your kitchen cabinets...refinishing a tiny dresser is actually kind of fun.

For the most part, removing the 'antique' stain application went pretty smoothly...in some parts it would peel right off in sheets. I knocked out the drawers and small door in less than an hour, which gave me a false sense of confidence when it came time to start the actual dresser.

Since I was out on the deck for three hours and Josh happened to be home a little early that night working on the computer...he would come check on me every so often because he felt bad his pregnant wife was outside sanding and scraping. He is pretty sweet. :) He would come out and get some good scrapes in (I don't know why he is better than me at everything) and then head back inside to keep working. I'm always pretty adamant that he NOT help me with projects so I can prove I can do them on my own...hence allowing me to tackle more ridiculous projects with his approval since he knows it won't end up on his plate.

Anyway...he would come out and yack about opportunity costs and how a seemingly 'free' dresser is never free and it's actually costing us about $500+ after all the time and labor and blah blah blah so I had no problem sending him back inside so I could SCRAPE IN PEACE. IT'S A FAMILY HEIRLOOM AND IT'S WORTH IT OKAY.

This is what our sad little dresser looked like after three hours of being scraped to death.

Because we had to scrape so hard, a fair amount of sanding was required. Good thing I happen to have a handy-hand-sander from those satanic kitchen cabinets I refinished last spring. It was perfect for this project and even though it doesn't look like it...this dresser was as smooth as Maverick's future butt when I was finished. :)

I should note...before I tore this thing apart, I removed the little rusty wheels that were on the legs, as well as the hardware. I also took the door off, but kept the hinges because replacing those would have been next to impossible. I added little felt circles to the bottom of the legs (there was still some rusty metal showing) so it doesn't leave marks on the carpet. It also made the bottoms of the legs easier to paint.

Determined to get to the stopping point goal I'd set for myself that night...this thing still needed to be primed. At 8pm. Whatever, it's fine. We watched Parenthood while I painted on an old sheet in the middle of the living room. Josh doesn't even bat an eye at this kind of behavior anymore.

After the first coat of primer!

After two coats of gray paint!

I tend to jump the gun on painting projects...as in I don't usually like to waste time letting things cure for 24 hours when I could just crank the ceiling fan on high and come back in an hour to throw on the second coat. I was a really good girl about this project though because I wanted to do it right and make this piece a special one...each coat sat for 24 hours and I didn't add hardware until a few days after the last coat...I didn't even push the drawers and door all the way in until yesterday, which is a new record for me.



I paint in my swimsuit about 80% of the time in the summer. It's not weird, okay.

You can see the color of the gray a little better here. I picked the color of the bedroom walls, and then dropped down to the darkest shade on the paint chip for the accents I'm doing in the bedroom (more to be revealed!).

After the thing was painted, I was obviously dying to get hardware on it so I could consider this project officially 'FINISHED.' Problem was...the 50% chance I had at hardware being 50% off at Hobby Lobby last week did not work in my favor. WHICH MEANT WAITING UNTIL MONDAY WHICH ALMOST KILLED ME.

I have a problem.

I found the glass knob I liked best and looked the most 'antique' at Lowe's for $3.97. I was happy with that.

I found the glass pulls at Hobby Lobby after looking at Lowe's AND West End Salvage for better, more antique options, and these were the most fake-antique-looking, yet affordable pulls I could find. I think they ended up working just fine for this dresser. After all, they couldn't be too girly and glitzy since the dresser is in Mav's room, and I think I may already be pushing my limit on that anyway. They were $9.99 which was ridiculous, and the reason it was worth waiting to buy them until yesterday when they were five bucks.

Another Fun Fact...I didn't scrape or sand or paint the back of the dresser. Which I will probably regret someday, but I only had a quart of accent-color paint and wanted to make sure I had plenty, because there is NOTHING worse than being in the middle of a painting project and running out of paint so you have to stop and drive all the way to Lowe's to wait for someone to come and mix your paint. So I made a judgment call some would deem as lazy and went with it.

And after all of that...HERE is the finished product!

This room has terrible lighting, so I'm thrilled that in a few months when we have a REAL LIVE BABY living in here and Libby comes to take his pics, she will capture some good pictures of the décor too...until then, you'll have to put up with my iPhone Instagrams.

One other thing to note...old furniture smells sometimes. This dresser smelled a little...interesting. So as per the suggestion of Patti Boersma, I have a box of baking soda sitting inside to take care of that. Until then it sits empty, just waiting to be filled with organized baby goodies.

So that was my project last week from start to finish. You can hardly call it a tutorial, but...it's something I guess. ;)

MmB