Though small, this little chair provided some of its own challenges to refinish.About a month ago my wife picked up a little toddler-sized oak rocking chair at a yard sale for $3.00 and brought it home for our son who is about to turn one year old.

The chair looked as though it had been left out in a rain once or twice or at the very least kept on a sun porch and exposed to the elements …

Wow! Staining the dresser for the first time. What a difference!
Finally!

After months of on and off paint stripping, sanding and repairs I was finally ready to start making this 80-year-old dress look like something. Even bare it looked about a hundred times better than it did painted and the maple had such a wonderful natural shine to it that I strongly considered just adding a clear coat and leaving it the way it was. But it wouldn’t …

Please see How To Refinish A Dresser - Part 3 - Sandpaper, Grit and Power Sanders.

After sanding the dresser to the point where it was about ready to begin the stain and finish I decided to take a detour from the refinishing and “fix” up the dresser so that it was a decent piece of furniture again. This was an unplanned step when I first began, but the more I worked with the dresser, the more I found things that compromised the integrity of the piece as a working piece of furniture….

Please see How to Refinish A Dresser - Part 2 - Stripping Old Paint.

Many hours of sanding reveals the beauty of natural wood furniture.
The most important lesson I learned when sanding hardwood furniture is to take your time and be patient.

After stripping as much of the paint off the 80-year-old maple dresser that I could the wood was still fairly dark and blotchy, but I figured there was nothing I could do about that, so I …