Tall Antique Dresser Part 3 and Reveal # 2

Oh man, what a title....

Remember this darling antique dresser I have been working on and revealed to you with one leg missing?

Well guess what, her leg is back and looking sexy as ever!

 

Don't believe me?  Here's a closer look.

I'll explain how we (which you of course know by now means my sweets) fixed this after I walk you through the last steps of the drawer repair and beautification.

If you missed Tall Antique Dresser Part 1 or 2, check them out to catch up on how we got to this point in the transformation from here:

After I waited for the inside of the drawers I painted to dry, I lined them with this simple but classy wallpaper I bought for a whopping $1.99 in the clearance section at Wallpaper Warehouse.  It's a huge roll and will last me for several more projects.  This particular roll however didn't have the paste  already on the back of the paper (which adheres it to your walls or in my case, drawers), so I simply used spray adhesive and attached each piece to the wood with that.

After measuring inside each drawer, I used my rotary cutter and mat to get perfectly straight edges and applied the wallpaper with a plastic putty knife to avoid any bubbles (a credit card would work also).  Here's how they drawers looked once the lining was complete.

Here's a close up of the pattern.  I wanted to find something with a bit more modern of a print like a chevron or trellis pattern but this one was priced right and I actually like how it brings out the brown distressed parts of the drawers and the dark top. Some people think that lining drawers that will just be covered with undies and clothes is silly but not me- I am such a sucker for liners.  I have been known to buy several articles of clothing just because I was in love with the lining (coats, pants, shoes, etc.)

One other repair issue that needed to be addressed were the stops.  Several of the bottom drawers were missing the original stops so they weren't closing in uniformity.  I searched for stops similar to the ones that were still in tact but didn't have any luck. 

My sweets came up with a great alternative for me, and glued some small pieces of mdf to the back inside of the dresser to the point where the drawer needed to stop.

Viola!  They all match and stop at the same point now.  Good thing he thinks outside of the box, because I was only thinking of solutions to stop it from the front like the original ones do.  Smart South African man...

And now to the leg. You know that this was a dilemma for us, and I asked for some suggestions in another post.  I got some great ideas and really appreciate those who gave some input.  The piece had already been repaired once before but wasn't holding up to my satisfaction.  They had repaired it by drilling into the base of the "dresser" where the top of the leg begins and also drilling into the top of the leg so that there was a hollow core in each section.  They inserted a long metal rod into the hollow space and kept the leg in place that way.  It was wobbly, the metal had bent and I just plain old didn't like it.  After several different attempts, we ended up basically just replacing the metal bar with a wooden dowel (very snugly fitted)and several rounds of wood glue.  According to my sweets the wood glue causes the wood inside to slightly expand, creating an even more snug fit.  Once the wood glue had completely dried, I was left with a gap between the two pieces where the leg had originally broken off.  I filled it with several rounds of wood filler and sanded it down as best as I could to the original shape once it had dried.

 I certainly didn't get it to be a perfect match, but it was close enough for me.  After a few coats of paint,

sanding and stain, she looks good as new (or old- depending on  how you want to look at it).

And that, ladies and gentlemen is a wrap!  I was so excited to finally take some full pictures of her today (staged a little bit differently) so that I can post it for sale.  I'm seriously considering holding onto it for a baby girl's nursery since I am optimistically hoping that my second child will be a girl.  :)  We'll see what happens.

Doesn't this chevron print look amazing on the dresser?  You're gonna die when you see the chair that's being upholstered with this as we speak.

Here she is all naked just waiting to be adorned with someones accessories.

Thanks for joining me with this ever so slow transformation.  I love the charm that comes with really old pieces but they certainly require more effort on the repair side.  Was it worth it?  Absolutely....

I'll be sharing this reveal and tutorial with these lovely folks: