Part 1: Dresser refab

I’ve had this dresser for as long as I can remember and it is screaming for an update. If you look closely you’ll notice a keyhole in the top drawer… and if you look even closer you’ll notice a small bluish-green bead that my older sister stuck into the keyhole when she was little. Like I said, I’ve had this dresser for ages.

I started to sand this baby down last weekend with hopes of staining it a much darker brown. I also bought some fun teal knobs to replace the boring wood ones.

The sanding is taking a while since it is a decently large piece of furniture. I think I’d be able to stain right over the existing stain since it is so old, but I’ll stick with my sander for now.

Yes, Remmy was there to keep me company.

Now I have to interrupt my own post to tell you a horror story about this project. I was showing off my handy work to my mom and my sister when I knocked the can of stain off the edge of the dresser and onto our carpet. As luck would have it, my unopened can of stain hit the floor just the right way, causing the lid to open just enough to leave a decent-sized wood stain blotch on my carpet. I’m talking 3 inches long of dark ebony stain. Holy crap.

So, I frantically googled how to remove wood stain from carpet and found a handy YouTube video showing WD-40 as a way to remove wood stain from carpet. I guess I’m not the only goof to spill stain onto carpet!

I drove to our local convenience store (not before shedding a melodramatic tear or two), but they didn’t have any WD-40. So I proceeded to make my way to Home Depot. I bought turpentine and WD-40, then promptly returned home to face the stain. It took a few minutes, but the WD-40 did get most of the stain out of my carpet. Praise the YouTube and home improvement store gods!

As for the dresser, I hope to finish it this weekend. We’re supposed to have beautiful weather, so I might as well go outside and sand and stain to my heart’s content!