Furniture Refresh

Furniture can be expensive, and while I would love to purchase a new dresser or nightstand from Pottery Barn, sometimes the quality does not justify what the retailer is selling it for. A majority of the furniture sold today is your basic, finished pine with some engineered elements added to it, so before you consider a monthly financing plan or using your savings to cover the cost, look around at your current collection. Your childhood dresser may have more durability than what's being constructed today. And while its design may seem outdated, simply take a photo of the next furniture piece you wish to buy, and use it as inspiration to makeover your current piece.

The Inspiration

The Pottery Barn Oakleigh Dresser

• "Modern Lines and Rustic Charms" and a must-have for my home. But, it retails for $2,199.

Our Version

What You'll Need:

• Electric Sander w/ Fine or Very Fine Sand Paper (About 120 Grit to 220 Grit)

• Drawer Hardware: Our selection was the Goldenwarm 25 Pack Contemporary Hardware Black Drawer Pull on Amazon.

• Stainless Steel Fender Washers - 100 Qty #8 x 3/4"

• Depending on the type of furniture you're planning to refinish, you may need to get a stain and a clear coat sealer. For this project, we did not apply any of these finishes.

Before

As mentioned, this was a childhood dresser. The goal was to remove all the hardware, and sand one of the drawers as a test to see what the new finish would look like, simply by exposing the natural grain once the original stain was sanded off. After sanding the first drawer, we realized how much we loved the natural look of the wood. Therefore, we chose to keep the reveal panels on the side of each dresser in the original finish, but sand everything else.

As you will see in the following images, the side panels now act as rich accents because left the original stain in tact.

The perimeter trim boards were stained, but the reveal panels were left unchanged.

After

We also decided to leave the tops of each dresser unchanged as well.

Within a few hours, we had two, uniquely refreshed pieces of furniture that looked brand new, and saved us money!