sprucing up an old musty dresser

old green dresser

Last summer I went to a barn sale and I remember seeing this great old green dresser back in the corner.  It was loaded down with piles of stuff on top and the drawers were full of junk....and it smelled musty too. 

I didn't buy it, but I didn't forget about it either.




So last month I went back to the barn sale and there it was....calling to me. This green dresser! I reasoned that we did need some way to control clutter in our old farmhouse mud room, so maybe this would work, this old dresser might be perfect.  So I bought it for $20 and my husband and I loaded it into the truck.

It had an amazing natural aged patina, but the paint was dull, crackled and chipped.  It had broken and missing drawer pulls, plus the drawers were sticking and not sliding well and most of all....it smelled musty!

natural patina and crackling paint adds to character

scuffs were further enhanced by some light sanding and distressing

So I decided not to repaint it but instead to preserve its wonderful aged character. First to clean it up, I removed all hardware, and washed it down with a sponge and a bucket of warm Murphys Oil Soap (this soap is okay and intended for cleaning wood).

dang....I forgot to get a before pic....aaarrgh!

So I then spread the drawers out on the lawn and let everything sit in the sunshine for several hours to thoroughly dry and air out.  When dry I sprayed all inside drawers with febreze...twice...and let it air out again in between applications, believe me when I say 'musty'. febreze smells so wonderful and did a great job freshening up the wood.

A few days later, after I was sure it was good and dry, I lightly sanded and distressed it some more around the edges, nooks and crannies.  I took a bar of soap (or you can use candle wax) and rubbed it along the drawer runners several times until the drawers started to loosen up and slide more smoothly.

I then applied several coats of clear paste wax to give it a lovely sheen and some protection.  I used the Johnson's Minwax clear finishing paste that I picked up at Lowes for $9.  To apply the wax, I followed the Annie Sloan method of using a brush and then buffing afterwards. I waxed the entire dresser twice over a 3 day period.

a great video tutorial by cindy from simplyreinvented on how to apply furniture wax
also watch miss mustard seed's two-part video waxes 101

The minwax is not as soft for applying by brush as the Annie Sloan wax is, but still gives just as great a finish once applied and is cheaper too!  So to soften the minwax I just scooped some out and put it in a small container and set that container in a bowl of very warm water for about 10 minutes to semi-melt and soften...that did the trick.

Meanwhile I purchased some hardware to replace the broken and missing drawer pulls.  Luckily I found some vintage ones with a rustic feel that were just perfect from the ebay shop...the3leafs,  seller is a very nice lady.  When the pulls arrived I thought they were great with the hammered look but a titch brassy and I wanted to darken them up a bit.....so I gave them a dark wax rub (see my next post on making dark paste).

drawer pull blackened with dark paste rub

paste wax gave the dresser a wonderful hard sheen

Once the new hardware was mounted and the dresser put into place, I filled it up with all of our mud room clutter....gloves, hats, scarves and shoes.  We have a very small mud room and there is not much space, so it is awesome to have everything put away and the floors finally clear while staying on budget...woo hoo!

filled up with hats, gloves, scarves and shoes

floors are now clear and free of clutter