Not quite antiques

With all the flurry of moving to Norman, I have had to put off posting about this. There is a dresser that has been sitting in our garage for about six years. It used to be the dresser in my brother's nursery and mine before that. It is sturdy and small enough to travel pretty easily, so I asked my mom about refurbishing it this past spring. She was excited about it, so we resolved to do it sometime this summer. I also found out that this dresser, along with the two end tables we ended up working on also, was made by my grandmother's brother as a project in his high school shop class. So they are family heirlooms! My mom had them in her bedroom growing up also; how cool is that?



The first obstacle was the FIVE layers of paint on the dresser, the youngest of which has been on for over twenty years.

We started out with some wussy acid remover, and had to move over to the gallon can of Tuff-Job in order to get the job done right. It burned our fingers something awful.

Then next step was sanding it all down. Not every scrap of paint was gone, but that was okay with me. I wanted it to have a rugged, worn look anyway. Cary bought a sander to do the big flat pieces, and the rest was hand sanded.


Midway through the project, Cary decided I was taking too long and he was tired of parking the porche in the driveway. He and mom pitched in and helped me get huge chunks of work done. We worked mostly in the evening so it wouldn't be as hot.

Here it is sitting in my room in Norman! Stained with something called Georgia Peach or something. It looks so great! The wood is actually a very nice color. The grains for each drawer don't match and it has a lot of character :)


Also notice the pretty pink painted walls. Thanks to all the lovely OURUF crew who came out and painted my room the day before I moved!