Yes, it has been forever since I last updated you guys on my dresser. No, I’m not done with it yet. Believe me, I can’t wait for it to be finished!

A quick recap…

This is how it used to look. Including the horrible blue color painted on the inside.

There were at least four layers of paint on this, plus a layer of stain and shellac.

This is how it looked after I threw the stripper on it two or three times.

I’ll admit that I was starting to get depressed about the whole thing. I had originally wanted to stain it the same color as my bookshelves so that they would match. As I spent more time with this dresser I realized that it needed to be a different color. This is for one of two reasons. 1) I can’t get all of the stain out of the wood. There is going to be some color no matter what I do. There are way too many crevices for me to try to sand without ruining the look. 2) In my mind’s eye when I see it finished it has a darker mahogany look to it.

This is how it looks after a LOT of sanding. I spent a few nights in the basement, covered in orange dust. I can’t quite call it quits, though. Every time I step back and think that maybe I’m done and can do the last little steps to prep it for stain I find another excuse to sand it down some more.

The drawers were looking good before. I was happy with them. I had sanded them down once with 180 paper. Then I took some 120 to it… and the process started all over again.

These drawers have been sanded no less than six times. They are so smooth that you just want to rub your cheek against them. And yet I can’t quite bring myself to call it good enough.

I even went so far as to put some stripper on the inside of the drawers. I figured that if I was going to spend all of this time and energy on this dresser that I didn’t want to open the drawers and still see that icky blue paint. Plus, I bought some dark blue felt off of the clearance rack to line the drawers.

I bought the stain for it this past weekend. With Jay’s help I decided to go with a dark red mahogany. We think that it will work the best to cover up some of the mottled stain that remains.

Even if I do manage to get this stained and poly’d before Thanksgiving I won’t have it quite done. I am still debating on the hardware. I want something in a gold or brass finish because I think that the yellow will look really nice against the darker wood. The problem is that I’m unsure of what style I want to use. The carving on the drawers should really stand out and I don’t want to detract from them. On the other hand, if they manage to blend in then I can go with a fancier handle that will give it a little extra dazzle. *sigh* It’s such a hard decision to make! I guess that I should just worry about getting it stained first, eh?