Dresser ReDress :: Drawers Part I

There are a lot of great qualities about my new old dresser, but there are a lot of bad things going on with it too. It has this great molding and wonderful little legs that remind me of Wallace and Grommet’s Holiday to the moon (the little moon machine with little wheel legs, I think only I would make this connection). Its the right size, with the right number of drawers. It also has water damage, interesting “art”, years of wood glue splatter and misused nails, chips, nicks and even chunks of wood missing are common.

This is what I started with today. Drawers. There were two reasons for this. One I can’t physically get the dresser out of the garage on my own and two I wanted some immediate gratification.

I gathered all of my supplies and started the processes of getting this dresser back into shape.

1. Take apart the drawers that are falling apart and remove all the random nails.
2. Take off all the handles and knobs so they don’t get paint on them. The best thing to do is to screw the screws back into the knobs after you take them off, then put them all in a bag so you don’t loose track of them.

3. Sanding. I started with my mouse and then finished off with sanding by hand. Nice long smooth strokes that follow the grain. Wipe it down with a nice damp rag.

4. Painting. I love this part. I laid out the paper and started with a nice thin coat. Then I moved back to the next drawer and started from the beginning again. By the time I put the first coat on the second drawer, the first drawer could take a second coat. And so it went until the last drawer. Now just the last two need one more coat and they will be ready to be put back together. With drawers, you only need to paint the front of them and the lip.

I’m thinking about putting some paper in the bottom of the drawers as a liner, but I haven’t decided yet. I was thinking of using some wrapping paper, which I’ve heard works well. I can’t remember where though.

In the next post I’ll show how to put things back together and do some minor repairs to the woodwork. I’ve decided I just don’t have the equipment to repair the huge chunk that’s missing out of one of the fronts. It will just be the bottom drawer.

This article on refinishing an old dresser was very informative, so if you are thinking about taking this on yourself, definitely read it.

Sorry about the late night posting again. I got sucked into the dem convention again, that and grilling. We had a late dinner and watched the convention and now here I am :) I think it was worth it though. There have been some great speeches going on.

Keep it crafty folks! See you all tomorrow with this week’s pattern!

Kristin

ps – I’m trying to clean out my stock over at Green Prairie Fibers, it’s 20% off all acid dyed yarns until midnight on Sunday, quite a few have already sold, so go check it out.