{Before & After} Gorgeous Pink Dresser Restoration

I am just so excited to show you the before and after of this 1920's Antique Dresser and Night Stand Set. Last week I shared with you a little bit of it's history (or what I could find of it) and a tutorial on how I created the marbled paint look. I'm so excited to be able to bring it back to life so it can have another 100 years of history to tell.
Earlier this week I did a post on how I created this marbled paint look, and I mentioned the reasons as to why I painted this antique dresser. So again, before all you paint haters get all worked up, let me say this: I know it is an antique, and I put a lot of thought into how I restore each and every piece of furniture I come across. Stripping and staining this set would have been much easier for me than what I chose to do with it. But this piece had a LOT of damaged veneer. The sides were missing chunks of veneer and the wood underneath was treated with some type of green treatment that I've never come across before. Also the night stand was missing a chunk of wood off the front of it. (There is also a tutorial on how I replaced this piece on my blog). To restore this without painting it would have meant basically rebuilding the whole thing - only keeping the appliqués and basic shape! Or waiting another 10 years until it was beyond repair and someone left it at the dump. I was able to salvage the veneer on the top, so that got stripped, stained and top coated with a gorgeous hickory color similar to the color it started out as.
This photo really does not show the damage this piece had. Especially because the major damage was on the sides. Also, the green paint that was used to accent this piece was chipping everywhere and the knobs had carved out huge holes in the drawers. This set was made in 1928 by a large manufacturing company called Rushville Furniture Co. Rushville, Indiana was a fairly large furniture manufacturing town during the 1920's, but I couldn't find much information specifically on the Rushville Furniture Co. It's amazing how much you can find out about a piece of furniture if you just look carefully enough.
This is a photo of the top of the dresser that I was able to save. It had a lot of cosmetic damage to it, but nothing major. There was a few small areas in the back that were peeling and chipped, but since the mirror covers those up anyways, I glued them down to prevent further damage and restained.
The knob was missing on the nightstand, as well as the curved part on the carved design on the front. I was able to replace that with a resin mold to make it good as new. I replaced the knob with this gorgeous crystal knob I found at Hobby Lobby
Vintage Storehouse & Co.
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Pat Pat on Feb 07, 2015
    Sometime the wooden piece of furniture has had it's day! Painting gives it new life for someone else that will love it! I think it it beautiful.
  • Leesa Osborne Leesa Osborne on Jul 28, 2017

    absolutely beautiful

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