Is That an Optical Illusion in my Woodgrain...

I discovered this beautiful piece whilst out perusing my favorite re-store.  I spotted her strong beauty straight away - I think she was flexing her biceps at me, and as a bonus, she came with a large 'leaner' mirror. 

 
An older gentleman also navigating the store's aisles stopped and gave me a wink.  He said, 'that is a very good piece of furniture. Solid wood.  You could refinish it by sanding back and it will be beautiful again."

 
You read my mind little old man!
 

 
If you have read my blog before, than you know that sometimes the wood purist in my (inherited from my traditional parents) chirps up and commands 'Put thy paintbrush down, young lady!'  Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don't.   If its an ugly 70s dresser, than paint is almost a must to make the piece tolerable again.  But on MCM pieces, I will usually restain, or do a two-tone.
 

 
This piece had stunning grain.  Like swirling Van Gough clouds dancing across the top.  Paint that?  I. Just. Cant. 
 

 
But more amazing.  This piece contains an OPTICAL ILLUSION on the wooden inlay of the middle bank of drawers!!  Can you see it?  Take a look through the pictures, its pretty obvious, and SUPER COOL if you ask this old bird!  Stare at it long enough and it will turn into a breaching whale with a rainbow overhead!  Serious! You just need to keep staring.
 

 
So after I hauled this mammoth home (all 75" of her), I plugged in the orbital and sanded off the old finish which was easily done on all parts accept the top.  The top had a few extra coats of protection and it was making the orbital (and my elbow) wheeze...so I stripped it instead and finished it off with the orbital.

 
 
I was very careful not to sand through the grain, this can be tricky at the edges and corners (as I have learned the hard way in the past).  After all was sanded, I wiped down all the dust and I started staining.
 

I than protected with three coats of poly (5 on the top).

 
I opted to keep the original hardware because I love the way they slope up at the top. It reminds me of the peaks on BRASLIA dressers.
 
Here is the before.  She is on her side. She had a lot of scratches, but overall very good condition. No significant chips or dings.

Stripping in the Cold!

Well I did it, I finally took the plunge. After numerous pieces of mind numbing, elbow aching orbital sanding dust clogging up my eyes, I finally decided to try stripping.

The piece was the beauty below. She received quite a transformation and required a hhhheck of a lot of work. But no whinging in this post, nope, this post is dedicated to the virtues of "Circa 1850" which stepped in and took over when my elbow was so exhausted it was bending the wrong way.



For some reason, the finish on the top of this piece resisted sanding. I tried, it didn't yield. I tried harder, it dug its heels in. You can see from the picture below how far my 35 minute effort got me. About 1/8th of the way through the top. 'No thanks,' I said. 'No thanks,' Mr Chuckles' seconded.



So it was off to RONA to wade into the slippery pool of stripping aides. They only had one product. One. It was fairly priced at $11 for the can, but I was a little doubtful that this particular can just happened to be the magical brew I was looking for. How wrong I would be!

I handed over the cash, had an encouraging nod from the salesman, than the can and I drove home together eyeing each other up suspiciously. 'Really?' I thought. Is this really going to magically eat through that ridiculously thick finish?



It did. I cajoled Mr. Chuckles into helping me, handed him over the pink 'domestic goddess' gloves and stood well back with some goggles protecting my peepers. He carefully opened the over-pressurized can and set about slopping the stuff on with a paint brush. We went inside (it was cold in the garage) had a cookie, watched a commercial or two, and went back out to find this.



Mr. Chuckles grabbed his spatula and started scraping with gusto. I couldn't believe how easily the stuffed flopped right off in great big leathery chunks. Our eyes locked in mutual astonishment. 'Can I have a try...' I ventured. But no way was Mr. Chuckles handing over his spatula. He was having too much fun.






In total, we spent about 4 minutes scraping off the entire top of the dresser. Well worth $11. After it dried out, we still smoothed things out with a once over with the orbital. But it took minutes, not hours.



So there you have it.  No need to tear a hole through your elbow anymore.  Fling that orbital sander in the corner and grab a can of the good stuff.

Oh, and by happy accident I discovered that it works a treat on getting old dried paint out of brushes.  You know, those ones that you forgot to wash and left sitting on top of a milk crate somewhere only to discover three days later that it was stiff as a board. Well, I have found the cure.