Refinishing Furniture - Part 3 - Completed

Here they are - I am so excited to see how beautiful they look in the girls room. They are so ready to fill them with girly stuff! After staining, I applied 4-5 coats of tung oil. Its my favorite finish - it makes it almost look like it has a polyurethane finish.

This is just perfect for my girls. I know that they will have many years of making memories as did the Tucker family who previously owned it. We are just so thrilled to have it as a part of our family now.

The chest is also just the right size for the girls. They have already filled it with their clothes.

And because I have had so much fun working on these 2 pieces - I couldn't resist getting these to refinish for the boys. The name stamped inside the drawers is Heritage Henredon. Many of the drawers have dividers and trays built in. It is a really neat piece that I am hoping to refinish the same dark color as the girls furniture.

This chest is about 5 feet tall. The 2nd drawer is actually a double sized drawer that has dividers built in. A friend said it was a mens chest and the dividers were to keep their pressed shirts stacked and separated. I just love little tidbits of info like that!

The dresser is 5 feet long so this set should take care of all of the boys storage needs for many years!!

Furniture Refinishing - Part 2 - Bleaching Wood

The hardest part of this job was trying to figure out how to get the stains off the top of the dressing table. They appeared too deep to sand off and I couldn't find good consistent info on bleaching the wood. So...I got a little adventurous and used clorox bleach and water. (1/4 cup bleach, 3/4 cup water). Rubbed it on and let it dry - being so hot it took about 10 min to dry. I did this twice, then rinsed with a vinegar/water combo. This did the job and removed the majority of the stain. The only downside was that it also removed some of the 'red' tint of the wood. The grain wasn't changed though.



I also found out that I splashed when I didn't mean too. Apparently some bleach mixture ran down the side. These drips also removed the red tint. So if you decide to use the bleach mixture be more careful than I was. Also, make sure you research a little online. The bleach will completely remove the grain lines from some woods.



I am restaining the pieces with Minwax English Chestnut stain. The chest stained beautifully. The dressing table was a different color since the red tint was gone. So for it I added another coat of stain - Minwax Red Chestnut . It added enough red to it to make the match almost perfect.

I am now adding tung oil to both pieces - hoping to get 4 coats on each. Will post the end results as soon as I am finished up.

Furniture Refinishing - Part 1

At a neighbors estate sale, I was blessed to be able to find these 2 older pieces. One is a dressing table (or vanity table) and a tall chest of drawers. I bought the chest first and then the next day they had added the matching dressing table. The daughters talked about remembering it from their Grandmas house. I remember my Grandma had one too. After seeing it and all the memories it held, all I could think about was my girls sitting at it making their own memories. So my sweet family made it a birthday present. I was so excited that I didnt take very good before pictures before I started working on it.

This is the dressing table. It has a large framed rectangle mirror that goes between the upright bars. The top has a large area of water damage and that has been a very good learning experience for me.



This is the chest. I love the lines - not too many but just enough to add to the character of the piece. Both pieces have spindle like legs in the front.


Here are both pieces stripped. I used Minwax Furniture Refinisher on the dressing table and Zinler (name may be wrong) on the chest. Love the Minwax but it was 3 times as much as the other. I used 0000 wool pads and the refinisher to remove the finish. The color of the natural wood is gorgous - has a beautful red tint to it.




The dressing table, the top is going to be a little tricky as I have never redid a piece like this. I did a good bit of research on bleaching the wood but never found the same answers. Everyone has a different opinion about it. I also didnt trust my self to sanding not knowing how deep the stain went.




In a couple of days, I will post more on what I did with the pieces.

Rainbows

Rainbows always make me smile! This is what we were blessed to see last night. Part of the sky was very pink. The last pic is of the sky opposite of the rainbow.