wood dresser Archives - Alden Design Studio

New Job-New Tool!

How to refinish wood furniture

This month, Julia got us a commissioned job; a friend of ours was moving and wanted us to refinish wood furniture used in her daughter’s bedroom. All the pieces had been painted a few years earlier in a solid, dark gray. The client wanted them all to be a nice, clean, flat white to start off in her new home.

Refinish Wood Furniture-Bed Before-Alden Design Studio

Headboard and drawers.

Enter our new Earlex HV5500 sprayer.

We had purchased it a few months ago but hadn’t had a reason to use it, yet. This sprayer is a high volume, low-pressure sprayer – perfect for painting a lot of large surfaces like headboards, footboards, dressers, and a vanity.

Refinish Wood Furniture Spraying by Alden Design Studio

On to the repairs.

The bed rails needed to be repaired where the veneer had peeled. There also were spots that needed a little wood filler and sanding done on the vanity. (One vanity door needed a new edge piece attached to replace a splintered existing one.) A cedar bottom drawer in the dresser needed a larger finger hole drilled out because the old pull tab had long ago disappeared, and a larger one was requested.

Refinish Wood Furniture-Chips-Alden Design Studio

Restoring the hardware.

All the drawer hardware had been previously painted with the same dark gray paint.

Julia boiled all of the hardware and then shocked it in an ice bath to break the paint bond. She then wire-brushed clean and polished it all.

Once the hardware had several coats of paint (and a few spots covered in Kilz), it was ready to be reattached to the newly painted bedroom furniture. The refinished wood furniture now looked clean and classy. Another happy customer!

Until next time,

Gary

Tools we use every day on our projects can be found on our resources page here.

If you’re struggling with your own project or just need some advice on choosing the right paint for a project, Call Us. We offer phone consultation services that will answer all your questions!

If you like this project, you’ll love our bookshelf build!

Also, check out our progress as we remodel our 42-year old home!

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DIY Wood Plate Rack

A Christmas platter (but not of cookies) expanded to a custom plate rack

Three years ago, I bought my wife a platter for Christmas. (I know she loves platters and decorative plates.) Little did I know that would prompt her to ask for a rack to display them all. Since I had a lot of loose pieces of wood, and a little leftover Luan paneling, I said, “Sure.”

The overall dimensions are roughly 79 1/2“ tall, 28“ wide, and 4 1/2“ deep. I started by figuring how many shelves would fit comfortably and then used my table saw to cut some dadoes in the sides to hold the shelves. (This was before I had a router table or any dado blades for the table saw.) On each shelf, I again used the table saw to cut a plate holder channel at the front of the piece, about an inch in and about 1/8” wide and deep.

Once I had the basic shape squared up, glued, and nailed together, I added the back with the piece of 1/4” Luan and attached some ribs on the front made out of leftover pine in the shop. (The air compressor and pin nailer were lifesavers on this project!) I ripped the pine board into 3/4” strips and 1/2” thick. I figured three ribs per shelf: enough to give it some protection, but not so much that it overpowered the piece. (She’s going to want to see those decorative plates, you know!)

Once assembled, I painted it a bright white gloss enamel. The white makes a great contrasting pop against the colors, and the gloss makes it easy to clean, too.

I marked out the studs and hung it in the kitchen near the doorway. Then I added a piece of trim to it; I just thought it made a smoother transition to the wall. Lastly, I added another piece of trim to the top to give it a more finished look.

Until next time,

Gary

Tools we use every day on our projects can be found on our resources page here.

If you’re struggling with your own project or just need some advice on choosing the right paint for a project, Call Us. We offer phone consultation services that will answer all your questions!

If you like this project, you’ll love our bookshelf build!

Also, check out our progress as we remodel our 42-year old home!

Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep informed on our new blog posts.

Find us on Facebook @AldenDesignStudio

Our Barn Treasure-An Oak Dresser!

An old painted oak dresser called out to me…

Looking at this painted oak dresser from a distance for the very first time was incredible! This amazing piece we rescued from an open-floor barn where it had been “stored” for at least 35 years. No electricity in this barn, just lots of “stuff” that I was able to pick through and take home! My family had stored lots of furniture items in this barn, I made sure this wood desk came home with me. And, yes, of course, I checked for lead paint..whew – no lead. Great!

Drawer restoration needed!

Once we got it home and looked it over closely, we noticed it was missing a drawer on the lower right side. In fact, all the drawers will need new drawer bottoms and a bit of cleaning to remove the nests of different critters who had once (or more) called this dresser home.

The drawer sides were not a “Dovetail” cut, nope! They were a “scalloped and dowel” method of joining the drawer sides. This type of joinery was a first for me! Wow – This piece absolutely needed us!

The hubby made the updates to the drawers and installed a shelf where the missing door was and then added a bottom. A couple of drawer pulls were missing, and the rest were very brittle. The holes in these drawers were not the standard width of today. They were an odd size so we had to special order the pulls.

Once the paint was removed, the magic started to happen. The beauty began coming through. We then stained this magnificent piece of furniture and added the special-order handles as a finishing touch. This wood desk is in our guest room and just makes me smile every time I see it. The wood needed to be shown off…and I think it now does!

Hope you enjoyed this project.

Until next time,

Julia

Tools we use every day for our projects can be found on our resources page here.

If you’re struggling with your own project or just need some advice on choosing the right paint for a project, Call Us. We offer phone consultation services that will answer all your questions!

Also, check out our progress as we remodel our 42-year old home!

Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep informed on our new blog posts.

Find us on Facebook @AldenDesignStudio