Wednesday, August 31, 2011

A Walk on the Masculine Side

Whew! After taking two months working on a totally different type of project, I'm back to full Junky Vagabond mode!! For those of you who saw my post yesterday, that was unintended. I was waiting on the handles, wrote up the post, and scheduled it for a time in the future thinking that would surely be enough time...and promptly forgot about it - DOH! Well, the handles came in and I have finished both the dresser AND the post :)

While working this other project, I was able to score two old dressers and an old desk. All are going to get refinished and one is being given to my very deserving youngest brother. He's a veteran, a law school graduate, and is an all-around great person IMUO (in my unbiased opinion - LOL). When he mentioned that he hasn't had a dresser since he was a kid, well it became my personal mission to get him one...preferably on the cheap and something needing a transformation.

Enter this Blond Beauty:



It's in decent condition, it has a cool art-deco curved look to it, and best of all: it was $25. My brother has a few pieces of furniture and they are all dark wood, so this baby was going dark. Quite a difference from all the white-washed and bright colors out in bloggy-land, but the masculine look is a welcome change of pace for me.

My first step was to take off the handles. They were fine, but I wanted to update and modernize the piece a little and that would take a different pull. The first pull came away with some of the veneer - oops. This requires some putty and I was hoping it wouldn't be too noticeable after staining. If it stood out too much as a repair, the whole place was getting painted. I really wanted to stain it though and have the grain show through.




Success! After staining with a dark ebony stain, the repair doesn't stand out too much. And even better, the rest of the pulls came off without damaging the veneer.

Now, anyone who's ever stained a piece knows it's a little bit different than painting. Follow the directions and it should work out just fine. The finish didn't turn out as dark as I would've hoped, but overall, it's a nice, warm color. The finish is a boiled linseed, that should darken over time. It has a hand-rubbed look to it just like old, antique furniture (and is soooo much easier than poly or even wax!)

Here is the finished dresser, with the new handles. It's a more modern look, but the handles have a curve to them as does the dresser, and it all works nicely. Dave, this is for you :)





Check out my Party Central page to see where I link up!

28 comments:

  1. Aww can't see the pic! But welcome back!

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  2. oops! I had thought I would be done with this by the time I had it schedule to post - this wasn't quite ready yet! LOL!

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  3. This is lovely, I really love the grain of the wood! Even though I paint and sell furniture, a lot of my own furniture is unpainted...

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  4. Wow, Jill - it looks fantastic! What a transformation.

    THANK YOU. Can't believe I'm gonna have a dresser again.

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  5. Gorgeous! I love that you kept the original style but updated it. It's just beautiful. I really want it. Haha! Great job! I also love that you refinished it instead of painting over it. Just perfect. Really great job!

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  6. Stunning! I love this Jill. So glad you are back - I love your creations!

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  7. just found your blog via funkyjunk and i'm in love with this piece! fab fab fab! not enough mod stuff being rehabbed out there. you have a great eye and a lucky brother!

    amy

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  8. that is fabulous! i love the darker wood tones and those sleek and shiny handles. way better than the original form, and not bad at all for 25 bucks.

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  9. Jill, I just saw this great gift you refinished and gave to David (I've always called him David and he doesn't mind that I don't call him Dave). I always knew you were creative. Good work and you're having fun doing it. That's important. Love, Mom

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  10. love the dresser and i love that you didnt paint it.. the wood looks beautiful. id love to feature it. if that would be ok with you please let me know.
    lauren

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  11. Love it, well done and perfect hardware choice!
    Trish
    www.mash-upchic.blogspot.com

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  12. Wow - love that dresser, just found you through Better After. New follower here!

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  13. LOVE this! just saw it at better after and it looks so modern and west elm to me- in love!

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  14. So beautiful! What product did you use to take the old finish off? I have almost this identical dresser...

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  15. Wow, awesome job! Looks so expensive and modern! I would love for you to come share today over at Passionatelyperfect.com!! Your newest follower!

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  16. Did you sand the previous finish first?

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    1. I was wondering the same thing - did you have to sand first?
      The piece turned out so beautiful!

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    2. Lorette and Mec: Since I was using stripper, I did not sand first. After stripping it, I did sand with a fine grain sandpaper (400 grit or more) or fine steel wool in the grooves to smooth out the grain raised by the stripper. If I poly it, I always steel wool between coats too, but this finish was boiled linseed oil.

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    3. Hi i am curious, you say you stripped and sanded this? So is this dresser completely made out of solid wood? As u mentioned veneer? If it is veneer how do you strip and stain plastic veneer i don't understand? Please could you enlighten me as I would like to do a project like this, but I thought the only thing u could ever do with cheap veneer is paint it??? Please help. Thank you x

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    4. Hi, this was a wood dresser, with a wood veneer, not plastic veneer. So I was able to strip the finish off all of it and then sand it. I knew if I sanded too aggressively, it would go through the wood veneer, so it was a light sanding after the stripping to just clean it up a little. The older the piece, the better chance you'll have wood veneer.

      If it is plastic veneer (like formica) then the best you can do is paint it in my opinion. Good luck and if I can be of more help, please feel free to email me.

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  17. This really inspirational. I really need a dresser for my bedroom and this is inexpensive and beautiful way to do it. I love the handles. Thank you for sharing. Now I just need to find great deal on an old dresser

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  18. I hope you dont mind me asking, but where did you buy those handles? I love them!!!

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    1. The handles were from an online shop and were the most reasonably priced I could find:

      http://www.knobsandhardware.com/cabinet-pulls/laury-88006-melrose-arch-pull_g185685.html?isku=1381362&linkloc=cataLogProductItemsImage

      and they have different sizes available.

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  19. This is so inspiring, I was hoping perhaps you knew of some sites that talked about staining furniture such as this? I'd love to stain my dresser this dark ebony! May I ask, what company/kind of stain did you use? I'd appreciate it absolutely! Lovely work :)

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    1. Thank you! Staining is something that you have to play with a bit to get the feel of it. I would go to the internet for help, but really experience is the best teacher. Do a few smaller projects to get the hang of how to apply, when to wipe off, how different woods take stain, what kinds of top coats you like. I used Minwax Ebony to get as dark a stain as possible, and as you can see, this wood didn't really get all that dark. It's always different with stain! Good luck on your project!

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