This little gem was given to me a couple years ago because the guy at the time was clearing out his garage. I figured what the heck, we can always use another dresser right? We have a growing family. Up until recently I didn’t think much of it because it didn’t look like it does now on the left picture there. The top was a mess, it looked like someone had a plant resting on it and there was a huge ring of what looked like rot. There were so many deep scratches through the finish that I didn’t think they were going to come out. The whole thing was such a disaster I figured we can use it till we are done with it then toss it in the dumpster.
(Uhhh yes I did say throw something wooden away, no your not hearing things…. that’s how much I disliked refinishing old furniture, its been and acquired taste like good wine.)
The wife had other ideas though! She said, “Why don’t you refinish it or paint it or something?” Painting was out of the question I thought to myself, I was going to have to sand it anyway to get it smooth, so why sand it smooth to paint? Stain and clear coat was the way I wanted to do it.
I procrastinated as long as I could on this one till one day we found out that we had a baby girl on the way. Before I had blinked an eye my we had a crib, changing table, and my wife planned on putting our young daughters clothes in this one. There was no more procrastination left on this project, due too the fact that my wife is Brazilian and Italian and man can she use the right words at the right time to make me see the light. Either way I had to get going on this so it was off to the Wall Woodworks shop.
Once again I was really bad at taking pictures for this dresser, these are the only two that I had from the day we moved to our place now. You can see the color a little bit on the right but the left picture is the best out of the two. I thought it was pine, but after sanding it down I realized it was maple! Even the drawer sides were maple and dovetailed to boot. The carcass sides were glued up maple boards as well and after further inspection there were a few markings on the inside of one of the drawers which made it even more exciting. After sanding, I had to match the color of our crib, put on 6 coats of high gloss urethane, wet sanded from 300 grit to about 1200 and wax it all too a shine. I got rid of the old pulls because 2 were missing.
