Beam Me Up Scotty!

    Now, when I stumbled across this Vintage Ward Chest of Drawers, I was ecstatic! I had so many thoughts in my mind of what I was going to do to bring it into the modern world and make it fit almost any space. The first thing I had to do was clean it, inspect it for damage and then figure out just how many layers upon layers of paint there were.

I decided to use my go-to stripper for this project, little did I know the mess it was going to cause. So off to my favorite places, Lowes and Home Depot! I walked the aisles like always starting with the oops paint section to see what may catch my eye. They didn't have anything that jumped out at me so I ventured over to the chemical aisle.  That is when I found something life-changing. Well, faster I should say. The Jasco Premium Paint & Epoxy Remover, when I tell you it took less than 15 minutes to eat through all of the layers. I mean instant reaction! 

I went from the photo above, where I was trying everything, including my carbide scraper and it was just not wanting to budge. I was left with this! I was extremely excited! Until I remembered that a few of the drawers had been "repaired" with hot glue, I brought out the heat gun and started at it. Once I was able to get most of the paint removed I could finally start sanding. In my mind, I was going to stain this piece and bring it back to its original state.  Oh was I wrong! I started with sanding, and when I stain, I sand my hand yes, it is a ton of work but I do NOT want to go through the veneer or cause any sanding wrings or anything that would interfere with the finished product! So I started with 80, 120,180, and finally 240. I pre-stained and started with my dark walnut stain. It was so patchy and looked terrible. So I got out my mineral spirits and removed the stain before it dried completely.  I decided to sleep on it and figure out what hardware I was going to use. 

When I found these on Amazon, it was like the sky parted and the light was shining through the clouds! Not only did they fit perfectly so I didn't have to drill new holes, but they were exactly what the chest was missing. I was still tossing around the ideas of colors, do I do a paint wash, try to stain again, or just paint it? I didn't want to paint it the way the veneer is placed you would lose the texture from the vertical lines and I wanted to show that off. So I decided to mix up a custom color! I paint washed the drawers. painted the body of the dresser in the custom color I created and then trimmed it out in black! Oh, the legs on this baby!  They got to shine in their new black! I wanted to keep this one, but sadly, it did not fit into my space. 

 I hope you love it as much as I do!