Refurbishing an ancient oak dresser and other things.

I rescued an ancient oak dresser, which had clearly seen better days,  from the auction room a couple of weeks ago and  wanted to preserve its ancient look -  while making it more saleable of course.

Some massive TLC and imagination was called for which demanded the attention of both hubby (to make it sound and functional) and me to give it some wow factor. Some of the joints were loose and there were splits and bubbling to the top, though its saving grace was that it had no woodworm.

I decided I would paint it in Annie Sloan's Antibes Green and finish it with dark wax, which made a dramatic contrast to the original dark oak backboard. I wanted to retain this as the grain was beautiful on the backboard, not having had so much wear. Unfortunately, while most of the dresser was made from solid oak, the top was veneered. The veneer had bubbled and chipped so, with the aid of a hot air gun, we removed this, to reveal a light pine beneath.

Uh oh! The challenge was now to stain it dark to match the oak backboard.

Clearly, this dresser was not going to be finished today. I had already spent 2 days painting and waxing it. While hubby continued with the woodwork and staining, I decided to tackle a job I have been putting off for months.

It was a dull rainy day and I felt drawn to painting in primary colours to brighten up my day. I fished out 4 Victorian scullery chairs that had been languishing for months and spent the afternoon transforming them into a harlequin set of 4. Voila! Ready to go into our shop to accompany a pine table already there.

Thats enough work for today. Now to catch up on Channel 4 French Collection, to get some inspiration.