BUFFET RE-DO {Furniture Refinishing}

So, I wanted to show you my buffet that I refinished.  One Sunday morning we were driving to church and we saw this hug old buffet someone had put out for the trash.  We didn’t have time to stop as we were already late.  I figured it would be gone when we got back, but it was still there.  My husband and I talked about getting it, but we had no where to put it so we left it.  I was feeling bad all day thinking about that piece of furniture getting thrown in the trash.  So, the next morning we went to see if it was still there and it WAS!  It was HEAVY but somehow I summoned up some strength and helped my husband get it into the truck.  We took it home, moved it into the garage and it sat there for MONTHS!  But eventually I decided I wanted to use it up in our loft and got my butt in gear to get it refinished. Actually, my husband sanded it down one day and I removed the ugly rose glass tiles from the door fronts.  Then we put it back in the garage where it sat for months.

Here is a before picture of it.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture before I did anything so you can’t see the ugly glass tiles. 

There was one drawer missing inside which worked out perfectly.  My husband removed the track and we now use it as a shelf for the electronics.

Here are some more pictures of the process.  It was a big project with many steps.  If you have any questions about what I did feel free to ask.

I stained the top and then covered it so I could paint the bottom.

I used a primer in spray cans.  Can’t remember which one but I can find out if you need to know.

Used my paint sprayer for the actual paint…Two coats.

I then distressed it and did a glaze coat using some of the stain from the top mixed with glaze.  After that I finished it with a coat of Minwax paste finishing wax.

The hardware is all the original hardware.  One of the hinges and one of the pulls on the doors were bent.  I used a hammer and placed them on the concrete driveway and hammered them back in shape.  I sprayed them with a Rustoleum oil rubbed bronze finish.  I love them! 

It is absolutely perfect in my loft.  We have all our movies inside, as well as our family home evening materials, and the DVD and VCR players.  I am really happy with how it turned out!

My Mom’s Dresser

I have been wanting to do some blog posts but it just hasn’t been happening lately.  I feel like I am treading water these days and am constantly behind and trying to catch up.  My health isn’t great and I’ve been dragging lately energy-wise.  It stinks, but that is life for me, I guess.

Anyway, it is Saturday morning and I am in bed with my laptop and a headache.  So I thought maybe I could get a quick post up about my mom’s Christmas present.

You may remember THIS post where I asked for advice on what to do with this piece of antique furniture someone had put out for the trash.

Well, a few people threw some ideas out but I still didn’t really have a clue how to fix this thing.  I finally decided what I needed to do.  I wanted to leave some of that beautiful wood grain showing on the front but that door was sooooo thrashed and the top was bad too.  So, here is what I came up with:

The blue color does not read well in the photos but it was a really pretty greyish blue.  I created vinyl sticker stencils with my Silhouette for the door and the top.  I put them on and then painted over them and then removed them.  My parent’s last name starts with “E”, thus the monogram.

It took a lot of work to fix this thing.  I used regular wood filler to fill the corners on the top and all the places on the door.  On the door, the place where the hinges were attached were so worn down hinges couldn’t work there.  I tried filling those up with wood filler but when I went to sand it it all crumbled out.  SO I had to chip that out and then used an epoxy wood filler to fill those in.  After that I had to use a file to get them down to the right height for the hinges to fit in correctly.  Same with the little door pull hole. 

I sanded down the drawer fronts and top and then stained them.  After that I used a spray shellac to seal them and the inside of the dresser and drawers.  Remember, this had a very bad smell to it.  You can still smell it if you put your nose inside the drawers but the smell does not permeate the house, which is good.

I went for a chippy paint finish, done by chipping off paint with a putty knife.  Very easy was to distress.  I finished the piece with an antiquing glaze and a clear wax. 

Honestly, it think it looks AMAZING!  I wanted to keep it for me.  But my parents really like it, I think.  It looks great in their house. 

Here are some more pictures for you.

Had to cut a new shelf for this cubby. 

Lined the drawers with scrapbook paper.

What do you think?  I am amazed that something destined for the dump could look this good!

If you want to “pin” this I won’t be upset at all!

Dumpster Dive Buffet: Need Ideas

Can you believe someone put this out for the trash?

I drove by this in someone’s trash one Sunday morning on our way to church.  I think the house had been foreclosed on and this got left behind….probably because it is HUGE!  I wanted my husband to let me take it home, but he wasn’t too keen on the idea.  We didn’t know where we would put it.  AND we were late to church and were in our Sunday best!  So, we left it there.  I was sad but figured someone else would pick it up.  We went off to church and when we came home it was STILL there!  But still, we didn’t pick it up.  I thought about it the rest of the day.  I just felt awful that it might actually get taken to the dump.  The next morning I drove by again thinking it would for sure be gone and it was STILL there.  So, I called my husband and told him I had to have it.  So, he brought over the truck and somehow I assisted him in getting it into his truck.  It is HEAVY!

I forgot to take a picture of the REAL before picture.  Those 12 squares on the doors had some ugly transparent tiles with flowers etched on.  It had some hardware which I think we will put back on.  But a couple of the pieces of hardware were bent.  In this picture my husband has already spent several hours sanding it down.  I broke the tiles out of the squares into a garbage bag. I also hammered the bent pieces back into shape.

Since this picture I have stained the top a VERY dark stain called Ebony.  It is nearly black.  I was intending to paint the piece a very light greyish blue.  And then I was going to glaze it with the ebony stain.  But now I am scared.  I am not sure what I should paint it. I am afraid I will pick the wrong color. I did buy some wood appliques to go in the squares.  This will give it some more detail and will be a part that will take a glaze very nicely.

Anyway, I am just wondering if anyone has any fun ideas for painting this piece.  I think we are going to use it in our loft under a flat screen.  I will put all our photo albums on the top.  The drawers will hold movies and one of the drawers is missing behind the door so we will put the DVD player there.

I need to get this thing finished and out of my garage.  It is taking up valuable space in there!

If this was your piece, what would YOU do to it???

New Dresser Drawer Glides

I am excited to post about this today because I think alot of people will find this useful.

We bought two of these dressers about 3 years ago from JC Penney.  The kids have trashed worked their magic on the finish with markers and pencils and other sharp objects.  While this irritates me to no end, the bigger problem was with the cheap, crappy drawer glides that were already broken due to kids using the drawers for step stools.  We were going to get rid of the dressers and I even posted them on Craigslist. Luckily, they did not sell!

We decided we would switch out the crappy glides for some nicer ones and just live with the scratches.  It would really be pointless to get new dressers when I KNOW my kids would quickly ruin the finish on them as well.

Anyway, I took pics of the process of installing the new glides.  I hope I can explain it well enough for you to be able to do it too.  There are FAR too many dressers out there that come with these nasty useless things:

Here are the new glides we bought at Home Depot.  I think they were about $15 per pair.  Buy the length that most closely matches the side dimension of your drawers without going over.

See those beautiful little balls?  That is what makes these glide so smoothly!

Here are the tools you will need for this project:




 new glides, sharp pencil, accurate ruler, screw driver, drill with bit much smaller than screws, drafting triangles both large and small


Ready??  OK, here we go!
1. Remove all the crap from the drawers and remove the drawers from the dresser.  Duh!
2. Use a screw driver to take off the old glides from the drawers and the inside of the dresser.  Throw them in the trash because they are WORTHLESS!
3. Now, you need to figure out where you are going to mount the new glides.  I think you want the glide to be about in the middle of the side of the drawer.  It does not have to be perfectly in the middle.  What you want to do if find the middle, and then decide on an even measurement from the top of the drawer front.  So, if the middle of the side of the drawer is 4.694859" from the top of the drawer, you should go with 4.5", understand?  You want to make it easy for you to measure this over and over again on your drawers.
SO, my measurement was 4.5".  Measure 4.5" (or whatever yours is) from the top of the drawer face and put a mark with a sharp pencil.  Then use your triangle to make a line down the side of the drawer that is perpendicular to the face of the drawer.  Do this on each side of each drawer, making sure to measure from the top and measure accurately.  When you use a triangle to draw a line, you don't place the triangle right ON the tick mark you made.  If you do that, your line will be a pencil lead thickness AWAY from the actual measurement.  What you do is place the tip of your pencil on the tick mark and THEN place your triangle up against it and then draw your line.  (Remember, I have a degree in interior design so I know how to use these tools:))


pretend the pencil line isn't drawn yet and you can see the mark above 4.5 better:)



4. Take apart the glides.  There is a little black plastic lever that releases the 2 pieces from each other.  The smaller piece is going to attach to the sides of the drawers.  Place the piece on the line.  Make sure you have it going the right direction so that the end that slides into the big part first is at the back of the drawer.  Line up the glide so that the pencil line is perfectly centered in the screw holes.  Place it flush up against the face of the drawer.



Doesn't my husband have nice hands???

 5. Now, remove the glide and use your drill with a very fine drill bit to drill some pilot holes where you did your pencil marks.  There are probably more holes than you need.  It comes with 3 screws per glide, so place one at the very front, one at the very back, and one in the middle.  Drill some little holes so that it is easier to get your screws in.  Don't go all the way through the wood.

6. Place the glide back in place and use your screwdriver to drive in the screws.  Do this on all the drawer sides.  Good job!!  (NOTE:  You MIGHT want to complete ONE drawer first to make sure you are doing everything correctly.)
  Oops, no picture...image my husband screwing in the screws:)

7.  Now, its time for the dresser part.  Lay the dresser on its side so you can work on it easily.  Here's where its gonna get a little tricky.  You need to figure out where to put the big part of the glide on the inside of the dresser.  You don't want to use the same measurement because then the top of the drawer face will only come up to the top of the opening and it won't cover the hole well enough.  so, you need to see how big your drawer face is in relation to the opening.  So let's say the drawer face is 9" tall.  And let's say the opening is 8" tall.  This means you will have an inch to work with and could have 1/2" above the opening and 1/2" below it.  However, it is more likely that your opening would be like 8.5" or 8.75", which gives you less room to work with.  Mine was very tight, so I only gave myself a 1/8" difference in the measurement so the drawer face is 1/8" higher than the opening for the drawer.  If I had made it bigger than that I was afraid the opening would show at the bottom of the drawer.  This is hard to explain.  I hope I am making sense.  So, for me, I measured down from the top of the opening 4 3/8" (or 4 1/2" MINUS 1/8")  and made a mark.  You will have to determine what yours needs to be.  If you can make it more like 1/4" that would be ideal.  For some strange reason the opening ended up just barely showing on the bottom drawer of both dressers.  Still baffled by that, but oh well.



Again, pretend the line isn't drawn yet and you can just see a little tick mark at 4 3/8"

8. Now, because a big triangle won't fit in this tight space, use your little triangle to start your line perpendicular to the front of the dresser.  Make sure the triangle is flush against the front edge.  You can place something rigid up against the edge like a hard book or your ruler so that you can be sure the triangle is flush.  Draw a line as long as your triangle, again making allowance for your pencil thickness.

9. Now, use your straight edged ruler to extend that line back into the dresser, making it as long as the glide.  Make sure to make allowance for your pencil lead.  Try to be very accurate.

10. Take the big part of the glide and place it on the line.  Place it so that the front of it (or the end that would fit back with the parts you put on the drawers) is flush with the front edge of the dresser.  Now, open it up so that you can get to the screw holes.  Meaning, extend the inner piece out.  If you have it the right direction it will extend towards the front of the dresser and not the back.  Center the pencil lines on the screw holes.  Mark them with your pencil.

 11.  Remove the glide and use your drill to drill pilot holes just like before.  Be EXTRA careful not to go too deep or you will drill out to the side of your dresser where it will be seen.



See how the glide is opened?

12. Now, put the glide back in place and screw in your screws.  Push the glides back in so they aren't extended anymore. Repeat these steps for every opening and then flip the dresser over and do it again on the other side.  Be sure to measure from the TOP of the opening each time!

13. Place your dresser upright and slide your drawers in.  Congratulations!  You now have a dresser that actually functions!

14.  Replace all the crap back in the drawers:)

Do you have a decent dresser with crappy glides you would like to try this on?  Let me know how it goes!



I linked up to the DIY Showoff