Quick Antique Dresser Restoration

This is one of those posts that was totally not planned, but I just have to share this quick antique dresser restoration with you! Our recently graduated nephew has come to live with us while establishing himself in Oregon and that meant an overhaul of our son’s room (see his previous surprise extreme room makeover here) to accommodate two college-aged men.

I’m planning to share the entire new room mini-makeover soon, but today is all about a $90 antique dresser we found after realizing the shorter, wider dresser our son had been using made the room too crowded with two twin beds. And how I was able to quickly restore it to a nicer finish – an amazing finish, actually!

Of course we waited until the weekend before our nephew was scheduled to arrive before finding a dresser that would work with our budget and space considerations. I had been searching Craigslist for a couple weeks to no avail, so we tried the area thrift and used furniture stores and found this gem:

Original hardware, sweet turned legs (on casters!), dovetail joints, and a key point for a boys dresser – smooth working drawers {of course those who follow me on Instagram already know about this score!). I couldn’t believe it was only $90.00! We found it at a used furniture/liquidation store and a similar dresser at a thrift store we visited had a price tag of $249, so as soon as I saw the drawers were in good condition we bought it.

Now I’m sure one of the reasons it was priced so low was because of the condition of the finish. It was covered with water spots and nicks, but the veneer was in good condition – only slightly coming up in a couple of areas, but nothing major.

While this seemed like a prime candidate for painting (I wasn’t even sure I liked the center motif…), I did mention we saved this to a few days before our nephew’s arrival, didn’t I? Time was a major factor in this case. That and the fact that I really wanted a wood-finished piece for the room.

So after lightly sanding the whole piece, I pulled out an old bottle of Restor-A-Finish that I’ve had for a long time, sorta desperately hoping I could just make the dresser presentable. Remember we’re not big on perfection around here? I actually like the character that comes from years of use on furniture, so I’m not always trying to make something like new.

But I was still amazed – as in, AMAZED – how this stuff worked! My photo of a drawer in-process looks just like the bottle’s cover photo – it actually works just like that!

Quick Antique Dresser Restoration Steps:

1. Lightly sand entire piece of furniture with a fine grit. You can remove hardware or not (I didn’t).
2. Using gloves and a rag in a well ventilated area, apply a bit of finish restorer to the rag and then rub it into the wood a section at a time. Wipe section with a clean rag before proceeding to the next section.
3. Continue until the whole piece is covered to your satisfaction. It’s okay to reapply to areas, but it may not make a difference.
4. Let dry 24 hours before coating with water based polyurethane or furniture wax as needed. I only coated the top.

Look at the difference in these drawers – see? I’m not even exaggerating! Since I wasn’t sure if it would even work, I only used my phone to take these photos – that’s how unsure I was of even being able to share this with you guys.

And while the legs aren’t quite as dramatic, it still covered the scuffs nicely and brought a richness to the wood. And seriously – I’m in love with these legs!

So I finished the whole bottom section of the dresser – it looks great, right? It only took about 30 minutes and you can bet I was pretty excited.

But look at the unfinished top. It was in the worst shape and when I sanded even more of the finish came off the edges, so I saved it for last. I thought for sure I’d have to strip and restain the whole top, but before I did I tried the finish restore just to see {hoping…} what it would do.

Okay, now I was beyond amazed into the realm of shocked. It evened out the color just fine for our purposes and I didn’t have to strip and restain it!

After letting it dry overnight, I gave it one coat of water based polyurethane to make it a bit smoother and to extend the life of this quick restore job just a bit.

So there you have it – in only 45 minutes I was able to restore this $90 antique dresser to something of it’s former glory, but with it’s character still intact. I love how you can see the wood grain of the veneer now and the painted details.

And though I’m using my Amazon affiliate link for the Restor-A-Finish that I used, they did not sponsor this in any way. This is just one of those cases of “oh my gosh, who knew this worked so well? I gotta share about this!” because it’s nice to find products that actually do what they say – and save you time and money on top of it.

So tell me, am I late to this party – have you already used this product with good results like this?