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 :)

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