Another find I wish I had taken "before" shots of. I fell in love with this piece at an estate sale. After paying for it, I realized the sides were completely warped from some sort of water damage. When I pointed it out to the seller, she said she hung a long doily over the top so that the sides were covered and you did not notice the damage. Not the look I was going for, I went home and brainstormed. What gave the dresser a neat shape were the way that the sides were partially recessed - basically each side was made of a thick frame, with a panel placed into groves of this frame. The "panels" were very thin pieces of wood, which is why they warped so easily when exposed to water. The panels had to be replaced.
Not being a woodworker, I used my creativity and took the back off the chest to gain easy access to the damaged wood. I then knocked out the damaged part with a hammer. I had some high-quality bead board sitting in my basement (don't ask). There was no way I could ever get replacement panels to fit exactly into those grooves, so I did not need to be exact in cutting the bead board for the replacement sides, which was a good thing since this was before I invested in a jigsaw. After managing to not cut off my fingers with the chainsaw (yes, really), I had two similar pieces of board that I mounted on the interior of the dresser. These new panels were an excellent fit, and to make them look like they were original, I filled in all crevices with high-quality caulk and putty. Really, you would have never known they were not part of the original design unless you took the whole thing apart.
This piece was small enough that I assumed it would go in a little girl's room or cutesy guest room, so I painted it off-white. But I cannot resist glazing bead board, so I ended up going with a dark brown glaze on top of the paint. I was dismayed that this piece sat for months on consignment. I get sentimentally attached to pieces, especially the ones I have to get creative with, and when they don't sell immediately, I get really sad. Silly, I know. I had a few pieces that had been sitting in consignment for months that I was going to repaint black, this being one of them. A salesperson at the consignment shop stopped me on this one saying it was too neat to be painted any other way and to be patient, it would sell. And it finally did last week.
