Friday, August 3, 2012

Refinishing a Queen Anne Dresser

This dresser was my mom's when she was little.  And it was in our house all growing up too.  I inherited it about 7 years ago.  It was a yellowed white with gold along the edges where you now see silver. At the time was I dead set against anything gold.  So I repainted it.  This is the second piece I ever did.  I did it in our little apartment, and it looked worse when I was done with it.
 Look at how gross that looks!  It was now not only yellowed, but streaky too.  This is what you get when you put polyurethane over white paint.  I learned this from a crafty blog: always always use polycrylic instead.  It's a bit more expensive, but obviously worth it.  And not just over white paint either, use it over all light colors.  I built an entertainment center about a year ago and painted it gray.  I tested the polyurethane and it yellowed.  It's fine over black and dark brown stain, but I just don't even keep it on hand anymore.
And the dresser was dinged up, definitely in need of a face lift.  And I've seen so many amazing transformations of these pieces online that I finally got inspired to redo it this spring.
 But what to do with it?  I wanted to take it back to it's original glory, but distressed.  I couldn't do that without stripping off my bad paint job.  I'd vowed never to strip another piece of furniture after getting my skin burned off (repeatedly) for the sake of my mom's other antique dresser.  I used a spray on stripper from a metal can.  So, here's another piece of advice I learned from a crafting blog.  Use citristrip.  It comes in an orange bottle.  It's more expensive too, but it goes much further and lasts better between projects.  You could even do it bare handed, but I don't suggest it.  Goop some into a plastic tray. Then paint it on with a cheapo throw away brush (NOT a foam brush.  It eats away at foam.  Get a crappy $1 brush... or two.)  It smells like oranges, but try not to breathe it, b/c it still will give you a headache eventually.  After about 30 minutes, it looks like this.
And that's when you know you're ready to scrape off the paint.  Follow the directions exactly b/c if you leave it on too long, it'll just dry again looking like this.
 Use plastic or rubber gloves, a paint scrapper, and LOTS of paper towels coated in mineral spirits to get the paint off... oh, and a toothbrush with mineral spirits for the crevices.  You may need to repeat the process.  I wanted to leave the original finish, but of course it's not that precise.  So I had to do it again in some places to get through that first layer.  Make sure you're working over some kind of throw away drop cloth.  It's messy.
 After stripping it down, I discovered the drawer fronts were made of various kinds of wood.  It was obviously meant for paint, not stain.  I sanded it down with about a 120 grit sandpaper.  Then after a few experiments and a lot of thought, I finally decided how I wanted to do it.

I pulled out some old nasty paint left behind by the previous home owners.  It's an enamel, meant for trim moldings.  I grabbed my good paint brush and just thew it on.  Since the paint is old and thick, it went on unevenly.  That's a good thing.  Seriously, just slap it on as quickly as possible.  When it dried, I sanded again in some places with 80 grit.  Then I went over everything with 120 grit to get a nice smooth finish.  And for the first time ever, I didn't feel like it even needed a polycrylic coat, I guess because of the enamel paint.

Now I love it.  I'm just wishing I hadn't gotten rid of the original hardware.  I used to hate it.  I've also thought about one day adding some gold leafing around the edges like it was originally.  For now, it's awesome!  Oh, and since I had all the supplies from previous projects, it didn't really cost anything directly.