Furniture | cardsbymo

Dresser Adoration

Posted on August 31, 2012 by cardsbymo

My parents have been in the market for new bedroom furniture for more than a year now. Right now they have a set of miss matched furniture including colonial revival and 1980’s high gloss laminate. (Not exactly stylin’ and profilin’) But every time we looked at the furniture chain stores all we found were pressed wood knock offs or high quality, very high dollar, sets.

Being that I love to shop AND I have a secret desire to open my own Custom Refinishing furniture store I have been keeping an eye out for a dresser for my dad. (Mom has the colonial revival chest of drawers) Two weeks ago I found this beauty tucked in a bedroom at the top of the stairs of a very rickety very old antique store here in town. There was no air conditioning in the building but, I swear to the heavens, when I walked into the room a cool breeze passed over my skin and then I spied this awesome dresser. It was like a love at first sight, romantic movie, on the Lifetime channel!

Then I saw the top of the dresser and it was more like the love that you have 10 years into a marriage. You know…you still love each other but, you are no longer blind to each other’s flaws.

The sales ticket was $160 but, I offered a cool $100 and the owner agreed. Now all I had to do was borrow a pickup truck, tell my parents that they had just bought a dresser sight unseen and convince my husband to help the antique dealer carry it down the 100 year old staircase!

There was no doubt that I would have to sand and refinish the whole dresser to bring it back to it’s original glory. Some of the veneer was no longer glued tight to the top and the tarnished brass handles needed some TLC as well.

I tried to clean the handles with some store bought cleaner but, it wasn’t working very well.

The brass was black as night. I scrubbed with the brass cleaner for nearly an hour but, it only helped a little. So I surfed the web and found a general consensus that distilled vinegar was the way to go. After soaking the hardware in vinegar for 30 minutes and then lightly rubbing it with 000 steel wool they looked liked this…

Gorgeous, right? And all thanks to this…

I sanded the entire dresser with a disk sander (180 then 220 and then 330 grit) and then applied two coats of Minwax rub on Poly in a satin finish. This was the first time I ever used a rub on poly and it was easy to use and great looking. Plus I loved that I didn’t have to clean a brush with mineral spirits when I was through.

Ignore all of the crap in the background and just drink in that handsome top!

It’s a little blurry but, that just because I was swooning a bit from the beauty of it all.

And this morning I put the handles back on the drawers and just stood in my garage in my pj’s and admired the dresser in the morning light. Now that there isn’t a big thick coat of yellowed polyurethane on it you can really see the natural beauty of the cherry wood. It was like a second honeymoon!

I can’t wait to deliver this dresser to my parents house around the block. And I’m glad to know that it is going to a good home 😉

Happy stamping/refinishing,

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A Little Dab Will Do Ya! (of paint that is)

Posted on October 17, 2011 by cardsbymo

I officially have a new obsession….painting my old outdated furniture! About 3 weeks ago I stumbled across two great sites http://betterafter.blogspot.com/ and http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/ (these sites led me to many others as well) After spending hours and hours on these sites I came to a conclusion that I shared with my husband Jeff. “I could paint every single piece of furniture in this house!” (Jeff is used to my over the top ideas and just simply said “Yup”.)

This is our old entertainment center. Jeff just bought a new flat screen TV and when we wheeled out the old big screen it left a gaping hole in the middle. So we dragged the TV console out of our family room and popped it in. The hole was taken care of but the mismatched look just wasn’t doing it for me. This is where the countless hours I spent drooling over the painted furniture on the a fore mentioned websites came into play.

Ta Da! I love, love, love my new entertainment center! At first I though I would paint the TV console too but, when you see these two pieces in person the dark color of the console pairs nicely with the chocolate glazing on the old piece. My thought is that if I try to paint the console it will look I tried to match but missed. Whereas if I leave it dark console as is, it looks like two complimentary pieces that make me want to do a high kick like a cheerleader! 🙂

FYI: I used Floetrol to help the paint go on smoothly and to minimize brush/roller marks. And I used my favorite Purdy brushes and tried out 6″ foam rollers for the first time. Also I primed the furniture with Zinsser oil based primer. I chose not to use Polycrylic or Polyurethane because unlike kitchen cabinets or a dining table this piece will get very little wear and tear. The total cost of paint and supplies was about $15o but the feeling that I really could paint every piece of furniture in my house…priceless!

Here is how the pieces looked with when they were painted with Behr Cottage White in semi gloss.They looked good but still kind of plain. Besides I was feeling brave and wanted desperately to try my hand at glazing.

Here I am brushing on the glaze while simultaneously holding my breath (in case I was ruining about 12 hours worth of priming and painting)

At this stage I am thinking “Oh snap this was a bad idea!”

Immediately after painting on the glaze I started wiping it off with a damp cloth. I had a feeling in my stomach like when you sit at the top of a roller coaster. You know that mixed emotion of “this is great” and “oh crap this is more than I bargained for”!

But when I got the extra glaze wiped off I was elated. The glazing made the rope detail really pop. It’s funny that I always hated the rope detail on the piece when it was a natural wood color (I didn’t buy this piece. Jeff had it when we met) but now I was loving it.