A New Finish on Life - part 1

Have you ever felt that no one cares about you? That no one wants to be around you? That you aren't useful? Well, this dresser knows how you feel.

My mom needed to go to a small assisted living one bedroom apartment about 1 1/2 years ago. At that time, each of her children took what they wanted and we donated the rest to a charity second hand store. As I was getting ready to leave the house for the last time, there in her bedroom was this poor abused dresser.

No one wanted it because one of the drawer fronts was off. It was missing a handle. It had the handle holes drilled larger to fit newer handles at some point and the screws holding in the remaining handles kept pulling through. It had stains and scrapes on the top that I doubted could be sanded and the bottoms were falling out along with the support piece of wood under the drawer.

My mom started crying that this piece of furniture was going to be lost. She won the dresser when she was a teenager in her towns beauty pageant. It was a prize from a well know furniture store (which just went out of business a few years ago). She suggested that since I refinish furniture, I could take it and finish it for one of my girls. I didn't want it but she was so heartbroken that no one wanted her "prize."

I took the dresser and it sat in my garage for a year before I could find time to do anything with it. I have a wonderful neighbor that has a shop and helps me with the more difficult projects. Well, I went into his shop in the winter and sanded it down. He helped fix the support pieces, put the drawer front back on and put in a new bottom to one drawer and strengthened the other two drawer bottoms. I took the front piece to the hardware store and matched the stain trying to restore it as closely to original as possible. Zar's "Early American" was the perfect match.

Then, the shop got cold. I had stained it and it sat until this week. Many month of being to busy to give the little dresser the attention it needed to be useful again. I felt sorry for my neighbor that I left it in his shop for so long.

His shop was dusty and I didn't want the finished varnish to have dust in it so I brought it home where I could give it the time and attention required to make it useful and beautiful.

I gave it its last coat of varnish today. The holes for the handles are still a bit big. I had to buy washers to go inside to keep the screws from making their way through the large holes. I found cute handles (which I will blog about in a few days) to cover the holes. You can still see the outline of the former handle as it is etched into the wood. On the top, there are stains and scratches that I could not get out.

Still, there is value......