From Dirty To Purty...

I want you to meet David

Machlan of Leesburg, Virginia.  David and his lovely wife Rhonda are recent empty nesters who are trying to stave off boredom and insanity after the last of their three children flew the coop for college.  Over the last year David has found a passion for making over furniture.  Here's one of his latest...

David got the dresser free off of his local Craigslist.  Can you believe it?  FREE!  

David writes, "The outside of the dresser was atrociously dirty but except for a few veneer tears and chips, in pretty decent shape and the bones of this pre-WWII piece are definitely solid.  I repaired the veneer issues and one of the legs where half of it was was completely cracked away.  I used PSP to clean and de-gloss the piece before doing anything else.  The paint color I used is a sort of moss green that was left over flat wall paint from our dining room."

David has a DIY chalk paint recipe that he likes which uses unsanded grout.  He mixed it up and applied two coats of it to the dresser.  He followed that with a dark brown antique glaze and then three coats of Varathane satin finish on everything except the hardware.  

The hardware he simply cleaned with detergent and fine steel wool.  David says, "It retains that worn/burnished look but has a new shiny look as well.  The inside of the drawers of this mahogany dresser were still pretty clean so I used a natural citrus restoration product and they came out looking fantastic."

Let's take a look at the dresser now...

It's fantastic!  Rhonda loved it so much she wouldn't let David sell it.  David is always looking for an opportunity to restore other pieces.  His efforts don't just pertain to furniture but also to preserving old memories.  David has been busy digitizing old Kodachrome slides that his dad took back in the day.  That picture includes him and was taken 54 years ago.  David encourages anyone with old slides or photos to think about scanning and preserving them before the media degrades.  Excellent advice.

Thanks so much David for sharing your beautiful furniture flip!  

Dear readers, that wraps up another week of Furniture Flips.  Here's your homework for the weekend.  Go save a piece of furniture.  One more thing, your comments are always welcome here on the blog.  Let's hear from you.  Is there a piece of furniture you've redone and not been able to part with once it was finished?  Tell us about it!

See  you Monday!

~ Stephanie