Drexel-Heritage Dressers Jump Into 21st Century

Drexel Heritage Dresser Before

You never know what treasures you'll find at an estate or garage sale. When searching for used furniture, look at the "bones." If it's structurally sound, the rest can be fixed and refinished, revealing a classic, beautiful piece of furniture that is hard to come by. This was a great example of how very important it is to choose the right hardware for any project, as the hardware really makes a piece of refinished furniture shine.

This proved to be a challenging, yet very rewarding job for a client who had purchased these dressers at an estate sale. They were of excellent quality, name-brand furniture, Drexel-Heritage, in great condition, however, my client wanted to get an updated look for these classic pieces, bringing them into the 21st Century.

Drexel Heritage Dresser After

The challenge was twofold; stripping the old stain from two different types of wood and making the new stain blend, as well as replacing the original outdated hardware with new hardware she had selected, that didn't fit the original holes. Not until we had finished stripping the dressers did we realize that the bronze colored hardware she had originally given us wouldn't work. The drawer pulls didn't line up with the surface of the drawers causing the ends of the handles to stick up.

1960's End Table

End Table Before

When I first saw this end table in the basement of an estate sale, I walked away from it, at first thinking it was just too ugly to put any effort into. After poking around, I decided to take a closer look and buy it. I'm so glad I did, because once I began sanding away the grime, I uncovered not only a gorgeous end table, but exposed two different types of wood! I decided to use the original handle on the drawer because it lent authenticity to the piece and I

End Table After

really liked it. I chose two stains to bring out the two identities of the wood and show off its grain. The legs once had metal caps on the bottom that were long gone, so I painted them black to differentiate them and give it additional character.

The linear look of the table appealed to me and I ended up using it in my living room, instead of selling it as I had originally planned. (I wished I could find another one and one day while randomly looking at Ebay, I found one...in Chicago! Darn!) I love this retro table and am so glad I kept it. Maybe someday I'll find its match closer to home...

Old Oak Dresser

Oak Dresser Before

Oak Dresser After Paint

A great estate sale find! We estimated this dresser to be about 80 years old and it showed as it needed more than cosmetic work. The interior was a bit chopped up and the exterior was in rough shape, so we chose to paint instead of refinish this piece. It was absolutely the right choice because the end result was a stunning old dresser with a "new" contemporary look.

We replaced the original wooden handles with modern glass handles, and replaced the missing center skeleton key lock holes with new brass ones. The knobs became the "jewelry" for this stunning piece of now usable piece.

When the wood doesn't look good, paint does the trick!

Check out another great dresser we've breathed new life into:

http://finalefurniture.blogspot.com/2014/12/charlevoix-cherry-antique-dresser.html

Petite Old Dresser Painted Black

Petite Dresser Before

Petite Dresser After

This little dresser was in really rough shape when we found it at an estate sale on Ursuline Street in St. Clair Shores two weekends ago, and we almost overlooked it. After we gave it a second glance, we knew we found a treasure. Seldom deterred by "ugly," Jim saw the potential in this unique petite piece and knew he could transform its outdated, rough look and give it a new and unique personality.
The dresser sports fluted sides, a rounded backdrop and the front two legs rest on rounded pegs for support. This little piece shows true craftsmanship of days gone by. Its five drawers were in excellent condition, but the exterior was in need of new paint. Given the luck we've had with black paint for the other dressers we've recently restored, we decided to use black paint again. We purchased new drawer pulls that we felt best suited the dresser's unique style and just as we thought, the dresser assumed a whole new identity, not at all resembling the sad little dresser we originally bought at the estate sale. It's now a respectable piece of furniture that anyone would be proud to own. With a little elbow grease, time and patience (of course vision), this old beauty has a modern, timeless look.

Here's another dresser that needed paint and TLC: http://finalefurniture.blogspot.com/2013/08/old-dresser-new-life.html

Antique Dresser Painted Black

Dresser Before Paint

I picked up this sad-looking dresser at a garage sale on the street I used to live on twenty years ago, right here in St. Clair Shores. It was smothered with kid's toys and dishes in the corner of their garage. I knew it was a buried treasure, so I asked the owners if they could pull it out for me. It was a little scary looking but I'm not that easily intimidated by old furniture. The scarier it looks, the better it turns out!) Bring it on! I had a vision and it was to be another black dresser with white knobs. So I bought it and had two young men load it into the back of the mini-van.

First thing was to take photos. The next step was to replace the sides as they had water damage and were deteriorating, but otherwise, this old piece was in amazingly good condition. After the repairs, Jim sanded the entire thing down to bare wood and primed, then painted it. Black was a great choice! Isn't it amazing what a little elbow grease and paint can do?

Here's another terrific dresser that needed paint and love: http://finalefurniture.blogspot.com/2013/08/petite-old-dresser-goes-modern.html

Dresser After Paint

Antique Recliner

Recliner Before

My black buffet customer had a second piece of furniture she wanted

Recliner After

refinished, this antique recliner. This was an unusual piece since it had a brass bar that held the back of the chair in place. The way to turn this from a sitting position into a reclining position was to lower the bar manually. (This was built long before the days of La-Z-Boy!) It was made of solid tiger oak, very solid and sturdy.

We replaced the hinges with new brass ones. Someone had butchered the original hinges, cutting one of them to make it fit. We cleaned up the brass bar and polished it as well as the rest of the brass on the back of the chair. This piece had some great details, which were greatly accentuated upon completion.

Buffet Painted Black

Buffet Before Painting

A customer on Craig's List contacted me about painting a

buffet. She was undecided on the color, so I suggested she go mat black. It turned out to be a great choice. You simply can't go wrong with black paint. It's a versatile classic that matches any decor. What a great piece of furniture!

This piece was solid mahogany and needed lots of TLC, sanding and patience, but the results speak for themselves. The customer decided to keep the original handles which take on an entirely different personality with the elegant black paint. After a lot of sanding and clean-up, this buffet is better than new!

Buffet After Painting

Curio Cabinet/Desk

Curio/Desk Before

This may not be an antique, but it is certainly a unique item of furniture.

Curio/Desk After

Lucky for me, it didn't require a great deal of work as it was in pretty good condition when I acquired it. I replaced the makeshift wooden pegs (made out of dowels) which held the glass shelves, with metal shelf pegs. Much sturdier. I then glued soft felt to each peg to protect the glass shelves. I thought it was a unique piece of furniture, because on one side you can display collectibles and the other side was a pull down desk surface which instantly turned this flexible fine piece of furniture into convenient place to compose a letter, pay bills or use a small laptop computer to do your homework (if you're a student.)

Antique Round Table

Antique Table Before

This was an adorable little antique table I found up at an estate sale last year, around September, 2012. I had begun working on it late summer and didn't finish it until spring, 2013. It far exceeded my expectations as far as the amount of work I had to put into it. It required a great deal of sanding as it is made of cherry (typically very hard to work on) and the details, such as the "button style" feet made it indeed a difficult piece to sand. The "fluted" top edge makes this a special little table as it shows the craftsmanship that went into it so many years ago.

Antique Table After

Antique Dry Sink

Antique Dry Sink After

Antique Dry Sink Before

Last summer in 2012, we found this antique dry sink at a yard sale just down the street. My husband had seen it on his way back from the store and told me about it. Shortly after hearing about it, I went to the yard sale and brought it home.

It had belonged to the owner's grandmother and at some point, was converted from a dry sink. A high-quality Koehler sink had been installed which was in excellent condition. There were holes were the original faucet was, but it had been removed. I saw the potential and immediately envisioned a dark stain to replace the faded golden oak. We upgraded the tarnished brass handles with nickel hardware and bought a new nickel faucet.

The Ugly Rocking Chair

Rocking Chair Original Cushions

I came across this pitiful rocking chair at an estate sale. It was in the garage, which meant it didn't have much value to the owners, but to me it had presented a challenge, so I had to have it. No doubt about it. This chair was ugly! More than just ugly, it had

Rocking Chair With New Cushions

been filthy dirty, smelled musty and moldy and had been covered with spider eggs. I wouldn't even attempt to sit in it, because it was so nasty-looking. After closer inspection, I made an interesting discovery. This was no ordinary chair; it was a Windsor-style cricket rocking chair, likely an antique that had gotten re-covered with the yellow fabric sometime in the 1970's. Underneath the skirting were two springs on either side of the chair, so that while all the legs touched the ground, the chair had a gentle swivel and rocked easily back and forth. This added new value to my little gem. After I paid for my chair, a nice gentleman had offered to carry it to my van and after placing it inside, I closed the back and headed home for a closer inspection.

Bavarian Hand-Carved Table

Bavarian Before

This table came to me as a referral from a woman who'd

Bavarian After

purchased the "Petite China Cabinet" from me. She told her friend about my work and soon, her friend called me and asked me if I could refinish a table for her. She then brought over this very challenging project; a table that looks like something you'd see in Frankenmuth. To those of you who live in Michigan, you've probably been to, or at least heard of "Frankenmuth," known as "Little Bavaria." The two restaurants, "Zehnders" and "The Bavarian Inn" have famous chicken dinners that lure thousands of visitors daily, filling up on the excellent German cuisine and enjoying the ambiance of "Little Bavaria," shops and all. Anyway (sorry for getting off-track) this table reminded me of something you'd see at The Bavarian Inn because of its intricately hand-carved legs. It also had a removable glass top, which was interesting, since one of the items I'd sold to the other woman who also bought my china cabinet was my oval table which too had a removable glass top which had doubled as a serving tray. To see another table with a glass top was really amazing. While the glass on this table was in pretty good shape, the the frame was scratched up. In order to make this look pretty again, I had to completely hand-sand the frame and re-stain it, then spray it with semi-gloss polyurethane. The results were amazing! I can't believe it's the same scratched frame she brought over.

Top Before

The table was another story entirely. It was pretty scratched up,

Top After

top and legs, but again, I was up for the challenge and began the tedious task of hand-sanding, a time-consuming job to be sure, but the only way to get the results to make this piece glow again. Once I had completed sanding, I carefully applied a walnut stain to the legs and cherry stain to the top. This table had at least three different types of wood. The top veneer sported a burled maple, which was gorgeous in addition to smaller bits of birch.

The end result was a table that was void of scratches that will last a long time. What an outstanding piece this turned out to be! So you be the judge: Bavarian or not?