The $5 Dresser

One of our biggest picks of the year was in early January, when four of us went to an old farm house in Clifton, Virginia that is slated for demolition. The house was constructed in 1850, and the previous owners included Annabelle Ashenhurst, who bought the home in 1950, and her second husband Russell. Annabelle and Russell each served in World War II, and in their later years each worked as school teachers and librarians. Annabelle even worked on the Manhattan Project!

Because Annabelle and Russell had lived in the house for so long, it was filled to the brim with treasures, and because the house is going to be torn down, these treasures needed to go! We were lucky enough to be asked to look through the house (and the two barns!) to see if there was anything we would be interested in buying. We did. There was. We left with three truckloads of pickin's that day.

And three days later, we made a return trip and left with a fourth truckload. It was on this second day that we found this cute little dresser with spindle legs sitting unloved in a bathroom. We picked up the dresser for $5!

This dresser is solid wood, with dovetail joints and some great detailing on the top two drawers. We're not sure how long the dresser sat in the bathroom, but several different paint colors, that were mostly on the front, told us that it was probably for a long time.

We've said it once and we'll say it again: the first thing we do when we get a new (old) piece, especially if it's been sitting in an 1850's farm house for decades, is to give it a good cleaning. We like to us warm water and either dish soap or liquid laundry detergent.

After the dresser was cleaned, we lightly sanded the entire piece to remove any flaking paint and to smooth out areas where paint had chipped off. This is an old piece, and we didn't want to hide its age.

To give this piece a fresh look, we opted to use Country Chic's "bliss" chalk paint.  We started with the body of the dresser, mostly because we weren't too sure on how we wanted to handle the drawers. The picture above is after two coats of paint!

Even though we weren't going to paint the back of the piece, it still needed to be addressed. Over the years, wood dries out and begins to turn dull, grayish hues. To fix this, we used Old English wood conditioner, which is a lemon-scented, oil-based liquid that you rub on with a rag. The top photo was taken right after we started to re-condition the wood, and the bottom is the finished product. We also ended up using the wood oil to re-condition the sides and insides of the drawers.

After a third coat of paint on the body of the dresser, and three coats on the drawers, we were ready to distress the piece. We wanted the distressing to look natural, and used it to highlight the spindle legs and detailing on the top two drawers. We also wanted to highlight some of the dings and scraps that this beauty had acquired throughout her lifetime - like we said, we didn't want to hide the age of this piece! Two coats of protective wax were used to seal the piece.

We found a great deal on brass knobs at one of our favorite stores, Carriage House Consignment in Aldie, VA (this is also our local Country Chic retailer!). We had picked up a lot of these knobs, which we also used to refinish the white night stand and yellow dresser that was turned into a matching set.

The finished dresser! Not bad for $5, right? This little cutie is for sale, and we are asking $225. If you're interested in making this dresser yours, send us an email at blessingdesignhouse@gmail.com!