Thursday, October 13, 2016

Friday Faves....Refinished Antique Dresser

It's pouring down rain, so it's not an ideal day for indoor photos using natural light. Regardless, I wanted to share the antique dresser I refinished this week for our spare room. The room is more commonly referred to as the grandkids' room, since it's most often used when they come over and spend the night. The closet has shelves with books and toys for them to play with and at the foot of the bed is a T.V. and dvd player so they can watch the kid movies we've collected over the years. (I really need to iron that eyelet bedskirt!  Oh, the things we can ignore until we take a photo!)
Next to the bed used to be a white wicker trunk that housed extra blankets. Fortunately, our youngest granddaughter climbed on the top of it and broke it.  I say fortunately because I suddenly remembered an antique dresser my oldest daughter had offered to me that I didn't think I had room for.  While out shopping for a similar trunk to the broken one, I remembered about the dresser!  There was only one problem, however...
it was in pretty rough shape.  Since it was free, I decided that I had nothing to lose by trying to refinish it.  The weather was great on the day I brought it home, so I plugged the electric sander into an extension cord and went to work on it outside in the fresh air.  I sanded it with coarse grit sandpaper to remove the original finish and stains, but chose to not sand so deeply that all of the nicks and scratches were removed.  I wanted the history and age of the dresser to shine though.  After sanding it smooth with finer grit sand paper,  I wiped it down and applied two good coats of natural  Danish Oil which has no stain added.  Once both coats soaked into the wood for thirty minutes each, I wiped it dry and brought it inside to dry completely overnight.  I already loved the results!
There's a scroll piece missing on the right side, which I will glue back on once my daughter, who just moved, finds it!
The dresser holds my extra blankets in the two bottom drawers, and looks much better in the spare room than the wicker trunk ever did, in my opinion.
HaHa! That bedskirt was bothering me so much, but I didn't want to wrestle with the mattress in order to take it off to iron it.  Instead, I put a thickly folded towel over a cutting board and went around the bed on my knees ironing it bit my bit with the cutting board tucked under it and my steam iron plugged into an extension cord!


Well, it's almost Friday, friends!
Have a HAPPY, HAPPY Friday
and
a safe and BLESSED weekend!


         1aaadoveladygfairy006    

TidyMom
Shabby Art Boutique

7 comments:

  1. such a nice addition to an already beautiful room..
    great job, elizabeth. :)

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  2. That dresser is perfect there! I love the character and beauty you found under the old finish. What a creative way to press a bedskirt! I'll have to remember that one.
    ~Adrienne~

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  3. Nicely done! I appreciate your detailed tutorial (even on how to iron a bedskirt while it's still on the bed!). Like a friend showing you how and giving you all the inside tips.
    Thank you.
    Carol
    puretsimple.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. It was an unplanned tutorial, but it worked quite well!

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  4. The dresser looks fabulous! (And that ironing technique is similar, I suppose, to ironing a shirt while it's on one's body!)

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