Tag: dresser

Furniture

A quick dresser update

Jessica Smith

My neighbors gave the hubby and I an old dresser they no longer needed and it works wonderfully in our guest bedroom. It wasn’t quite my style though, so I decided to do a quick and easy update to make it fit in a little better with my taste and the room. What was the best way to do that? New knobs, of course!

I picked up 10 new knobs at Hobby Lobby (the same place I picked out knobs for my last dresser refab) and went to work removing the old ones.

Two down, eight to go! Changing knobs is super easy, if you ever want to try it. All you have to do is remove the existing knobs, pop in the new knobs, tighten the nut around the screw, and hacksaw off the remaining screw! Doesn’t it sound simple!?

The new knobs make a big difference. Now I want to do something fun to the top! I’m thinking about decoupaging paper onto the wood veneer. Thoughts?

I love pretty knobs 🙂 And, this little update only took about 10 minutes.

Furniture

Reveal: Dresser Refab

Jessica Smith

Part 1: Dresser Refab

Part 2: Dresser Refab

My dresser project is finally complete, teal knobs and all! I’ve had this hand-me-down dresser for as long as I can remember — it was definitely time for the update. If you haven’t been following the transformation, check out the links above for the back story on the dresser and the steps I’d taken to refinish it up until now.

Remember before?

I finished the staining over the weekend and put the knobs on yesterday. The knobs were a little long, so I cut off the ends of the screw (on the inside of the drawer) with a hacksaw.

(Look how shiny!)

With the knobs cut down to size, I can finally have my dresser back!

Isn’t it lovely!? I like that some of the old coloring stuck with the piece — it has an old look to it, even with its facelift.

And check out these gorgeous knobs!!!! Gotta love Hobby Lobby (or as I call it “Happy Hobby Lobby World Land”).

Furniture

Part 2: Dresser refab

Jessica Smith

My dresser is almost done. Almost. It’s been sanded, stained and polyurethaned. Now all it needs to do is dry! Then I can add my spiffy teal knobs!

The project was rather simple, but I certainly learned a lot along the way. First and foremost, don’t stain outside if there is any hint of a breeze — especially in the spring. I had to bring the dresser inside after the first coat of poly because so much crap had blown onto it and was sticking in the finish.

Second, make sure you sand all surfaces you want to stain. New stain + old stain doesn’t always equal a good combination.

Third, make sure you aren’t doing things the hard way. According to my family friend, John, it would have been a lot quicker to use a varnish stripping agent instead of sanding all of the nooks and crannies of the old dresser. A tip for next time, I suppose!

Here’s the progress so far:

OK, this was the first coat of stain. Honestly, I was super disappointed with how it looked — it wasn’t all that different from what I started with.

And here’s the stain after a much thicker coat. Much better!

Before the poly (and before I moved inside).

Remmy watching from inside because he kept grabbing rocks and/or sandpaper, and then running away.

All polyed up and sitting out to dry.


Looking good!

Maybe tomorrow I can put it all back together, knobs and all. I might play it extra safe and wait an extra day for it all to dry.

In other news, if you follow my Facebook page you know that I spent part of the weekend unpacking my craft room. While that sounds super exciting, it was actually rather overwhelming. As of right now, I’ve got a whole lot of nothing to do crafts on except the floor. I also have a whole lot of nothing to use for storage. I’ve been hitting up thrift stores and Craigslist to see if I can find something the meet my needs, but if I can’t I think I’ll have to custom build something into my craft nook. I’m rather desperate to have a functioning craft room, but all in good time.

While I didn’t find a craft table (or a coffee table or a desk), I did find some other fun things at the thrift store this weekend. 

An old dictionary, an old atlas and a nasty silver bowl. Can’t wait to get to work on some projects I have planned, especially with the atlas and the dictionary. Oh! I bought a second atlas, but the hubby loved it so much he claimed it as his own and refuses to let me use it for crafting. Also, I paid $3.50 for it and it is selling for $135 on eBay! Holy cow! Great find, huh, Carrie H. (my thrift store buddy)?