Sewing Dresser Steal

My furniture craze has reached its conclusion. Here's the last post for a while on my adventures in refinishing. I recently scored this cute little sewing dresser for $30 at a garage sale. I seem to have an inability to pass up cheap, good-quality wood furniture. I bought it without the slightest idea of where it will go when it's done, because it looked like it wouldn't take too much work to make it look beautiful again.

The piece is a rich mahogany (with an equally rich and very stubborn high-gloss stain). It had water rings, scratches, and weird discolored lines on it that looked like candle wax but was more permanent. But in all, these were only surface problems that could be sanded out. I was up for the challenge.

First I took all the hardware off to make it easier to sand. Unfortunately, somewhere between this step and finishing, I lost one of the little drawer knobs. It's probably sitting out in our yard somewhere, getting cracked and swollen from the heat and rain. Oops!

I started sanding with the orbital sander but noticed that it was starting to make circular patterns in the wood that I didn't like. It also couldn't get near the edges without wearing them down. So I switched to elbow grease, first in a rough 80 grit and then a finer 220. It became evident pretty quickly that I wasn't going to be able to remove the stain evenly (not with sand paper, anyway--I'd have to switch to chemicals for that and I wasn't willing to go that far). Instead, I sanded deep enough to remove the damages and create a nice antiqued, uneven look.

Unfortunately, the elbow grease brought another problem to light that I didn't notice when I bought the dresser. One leg must have fallen off and the previous owners had just used some glue to reattach it. It didn't last long with the aggressive sanding. So we smoothed the two edges, drilled a hole, and used a dowel* and wood glue to help create a stronger bond.

*Actually, funny story--we couldn't find an actual dowel stick and I didn't feel like running to Home Depot. We raided our stash of utensils and found some Chinese take-out wooden chopsticks that worked perfectly when cut into a 3'' segment.

The piece is a little wobbly now, so I might have to tweak the level by slipping something under the feet until it's steady. However, we don't think this is going somewhere that's going to see heavy traffic and use, so I'm not sure the wobble will really matter.

In that same vein, because this isn't going to be in heavy use, I decided I wanted to keep the more natural, sanded down look as much as possible and opted to use Minwax Paste Finishing Wax instead of the more water-resistant polycrylic. It gets rubbed on with a cloth and dries quickly. It's not actually just a wax and has a lot of VOCs and chemicals, so I made sure to wear a mask and opened the windows, since I did this step inside. You can see the difference a little bit from this picture--I put the wax on the right but not yet on the left. It basically makes it look a little damp and richer colored.

Here's the finished piece, minus one knob. Hopefully I can find some cute glass ones and replace all of them, since I doubt I'll ever find the missing one.

 I love the amount of storage space--3 drawers (including one that has metal rods to string up spools of thread) plus 2 deep bins. Not sure exactly where this guy is going, but I think he was well worth the price and time.