dresser | The Mace Place

If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that I love me a good antique dresser. If you’re new to my blog… Well, I love antique dressers! Now, that we are all caught up, let me tell you about my most recent find.This beaut was another Craigslist treasure. That Craig and his crazy list sure have a some hidden gems. I got this tall antique dresser from good old Craig for $40. Sure, it needed some work, but the $40 was money well spent. Here’s a side view, just in case you didn’t get enough of the lovely dull yellow paint…I went a different route this time, then the last dresser I tackled. Instead of sanding the many old layers of paint off this old girl, I decided to use a paint stripper. I have never used a stripper before, so I was pumped to give it a try. I did some googling to find out which stripping agent had the best results. It seemed that most DIYers out there are loving Citristrip Stripping Gel. I had my winner, I picked up this bottle of Citristrip at Home Depot for $11.98. I have heard some harsh things around the interweb about paint stripping agents. Apparently, they can have some pretty rank smells, and be damaging to many materials, including skin. This stuff was rated highly because it has a nice orange scent and it is safe enough to use indoors. And, although, I had the option to work inside, I still chose to take this project out to the garage (thank goodness, it was a filthy job). I, also, used a good pair of gloves because this stuff will still harm your skin.

Before I went to town slathering Citristrip everywhere, I removed all of the knobs and gave it a good wipe down, including inside of the drawers.Then, I just used an old paint brush to brush the Citrstrip on every painted surface of the dresser. It took me about 30 minutes to cover all of the surfaces. After 15 minutes or so, the paint began to do this…See all that rippling and bubbling? Typically, this is not considered a good look for a dresser but, I was happy to see it. This meant it was working, and faster than I expected.

From there, I just used a metal spackle tool to scrape the paint off of the dresser.Here is what it was looking like after I had scraped all of the surfaces…It took about an hour of scraping to get it to this stage.Pretty good. Don’t you think? But, still not good enough. There was still some paint and a layer of lacquer left. So, I did another round of stripping. All the same steps again. And, I had this…Do you see that top center drawer? Ya those are flowers. Pretty inlaid fowers that were covered up by paint. Oh people. Why do you paint over things like this?I think it’s a pretty detail, so I was thrilled to find it.

From there, I just grabbed my palm sander and gave everything a good sanding, twice.I, then, stained the all surfaces with the same Minwax stain in English Chestnut that I used on the last dresser. And, I had this…I know! You are totally doing this right now… giphy I get it. I do. I was doing the same thing.

I definitely wanted everything to stay as nice as it was turning out. So, it was time to seal this puppy. I used Minwax’s Water Based Polycrylic Protective Finish. I ordered a quart off of amazon for $16 and some change (free shipping of course, thank you Amazon Prime!).I, also, bought a new higher quality paint brush, just to avoid any paint strokes. When applying, I made sure to brush the sealer on in very thin coats. I did two coats, some people suggest three, but since this piece wouldn’t get too much action, I figured two would be fine. If I were working on an end table or coffee table I would probably go with three coats, since they would more likely have more traffic on their surfaces. I let everything dry for a day, then added the knobs I had picked out. I needed ten knobs! TEN! That’s a lot of knobs, and at the usual $5 a pop I was looking at $50, just on knobs! Even though that would only bring the total cost of this dresser to about $100, I wasn’t digging that price. So, being a cheapskate at heart, I googled around for some other options. I knew I wanted them to be white and something that would look okay with the antique look of this dresser. I came across these guys on Amazon (have I mentioned I love Amazon?)…And, at $22 for all 10, I was sold!

Last step, I just put all of the knobs in place and VOILA!!…The stain and polyacrylic really made a huge difference. I am stoked about how it turned out. And, in case you are wondering where this old girl is going to live. I am happy to tell you it landed in my art/craft/office/extra guest room. See it? Hanging out over there on the far right wall? We tossed the old futon that was living on that wall and put the dresser in it’s place. I was needing more storage in here and what better than this dresser?I totally dig it and am so excited to have these big drawers for added storage. wood antique dresser For fun here is slideshow of the process…

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Have your ever refinished an old piece of furniture? What were your methods? Any suggestions for future projects? Do tell!

A while back (were talking months ago) my friend Gwen gave me a small antique dresser. She told me it needed some love, and thankfully I always have extra love to share with an antique dresser. Here she is…

I know, she’s a beaut! I got her home and guess what? … It sat in my garage for about 3 months. Justin threatened to bring it to the curb multiple times. Of course, I retaliated, that I would be moving out if he did. Gotta do, what you gotta do for an antique dresser. Fast forward a few months, and I decided it was time to get to work.

There were a few things I wasn’t jazzed about. First the color. Don’t get me wrong, red can be amazing, but I have no place for a red dresser in my house.

Next up, this broken drawer…

All of the drawers were in great condition, except that lower one. It had seen better days, and was missing the bottom. Kind of defeats the purpose of a drawer when you can’t store anything in it. Lastly, I wasn’t in love with the drawer pulls.

The first thing I did was give the whole piece a good scrub, inside and out. I used a few old rags with some diluted vinegar. Did the job perfectly, and I swear the vinegar smell wears off.

Next, I wanted to sand all of the surfaces down with my palm sander. I have a Ryobi detail sander.Before starting, I removed all of the knobs from the drawers, then removed the drawers from the dresser completely.From there, I just made my way from right to left using the palm sander. I started with the lowest grit sandpaper I had, which was 80. With a little pressure on the palm sander, I was able to remove most of the paint in the first shot. Some areas were harder to work with, like the slats in between the drawers. But, overall the paint removed pretty easily. The palm sander wouldn’t quite fit in the top slots, where I had removed the top three drawers. So, I used a low grit sand paper to get in those areas by hand.

Lastly, I had to get the paint off of the drawers. This was pretty straight forward, just sanding some more flat surfaces.I gave all off the surfaces one more good sanding with 120 grit sand paper. I made sure to work with the grain of the wood. This last sanding removed any remaining paint, and evened out any scratches on the wood. As I previously mentioned, I was not planning on reusing the same hardware that came with the dresser. So, I needed to fill the holes in the drawers left from the old pulls. I used DAP painter’s putty. You just fill the hole with the spackle, then pull a trowel across the area to remove any access putty. Once I had all of the holes filled, I let them dry for a few hours. I, then, gave the drawers one last sanding with my palm sander to remove any remaining putty around the (now filled) holes. Here she is holes filled and free of paint…I had planned to give this dresser a painted distressed look, and I wanted to have some darker wood tones showing through. In order to do so, my next step was to stain the wood to a darker tone. I used Minwax stain in English Chestnut. I just used a foam brush to paint the stain on, going with the grain of the wood. I, then, took an old rag and wiped any access stain off of the surface. This is one step where you have to move a little quicker, since you do not want the stain to dry.Please don’t judge my poor dresser at this stage, it looks a bit rough. As you can see, I didn’t completely get the red paint off of the ledge where the top drawers sit. It was a tight area to work with, but I made sure everything was smoothed out, even if there was still paint remaining.Also, the top of the dresser had been spackled by a previous owner and those spots did not take the stain. I was not worried though because I knew I would be painting over all of these issues. Perfection wasn’t what I was going for at this point. Then, it was time for paint. This is a make or break, color is a big choice, and I was thinking about going a little more bold than usual. I decided on a blue, specifically Olympic’s Celestial Blue. Once I had my paint, I got right too it…Let me tell you, I was really worried about my choice at this point. I was not digging how bright this blue was turning out. I figured I made it this far, I might as well slap a second coat on and see how I feel about it.

Much better! Thank god for second coats. Just check out the difference in these drawers.The top drawer is one coat and the bottom drawer has two coats, in case you can’t tell.

Here she is, in all her blue glory…Woo to the hoo people, I am stoked about how it turned out!

Now, this is where the distressing comes in to play. I debated how I wanted to go about distressing this dresser, and I ended up deciding not to do anything at all. I love it just as it is, and I figure if I want to distress it in the future, I can do so at anytime.

Since there would be no distressing, I just had to get some new hardware and this puppy is done! So, I let the paint dry for a few days, and while I waited I came across a sale on these knobs at Pier One…$0.98 each! Which is amazing considering I needed 8 of them! The metal matches the antiqued gold key slots on the drawers and I love the hand painted leaves. Before I drilled my new holes for the pulls, I measured and marked where I wanted them to go. I measured twice, just to be sure. Then, I grabbed Justin’s Dewalt drill, and I found the drill bit that was just slightly larger than the screws that came with the knobs. I placed a piece of painters tape over my marks (I saw somewhere that this will reduce the chances of splintering your wood or damaging your paint). Then, I just drilled right into the tape. Once I had all of my news holes, I plopped the new hardware in place and voila…If you are wondering, I did not forget about the broken drawer! I brought the whole bottom drawer to Home Depot, and one of the guys in the lumber section cut me a piece of wood that fit the slot in the drawer perfectly (yes, they do that for FREE). Once I got the wood home, I just nailed it in place, so it wouldn’t move around. The wood piece only cost about $4, and this dresser now is in full working condition!