This was one of those jump for joy while feeling like throwing up. It was h-u-g-e. Good. It was extremely well constructed. Great. It had no structural issues. Excellent. It was French Provincial. Perfect.
It was filthy. Ok. It was missing knobs. Alright. It had black permanent marker everywhere. Ah well. It had a chunk of the drawer corner gnawed off and clumped with the worst hack job of wood fill I've seen to date. Ugh. The top veneer had a panel missing so would need to be stripped to the wood. Yikes.
I knew this boss hog could become the belle of the ball though, so I was determined to try my hand at all the...hmmm...anomalies.
Veneer stripping. Let's just say it could be considered a prudent sentence for criminals. I got through the top layer with three large strips. Wawawahoo. But the bottom layer, the one adhered to the wood, the one that lay smugly in wait of my chisel's pursuit, the one that would not relinquish its hold, well that one would be sheer will to defeat. And as the last fragment of it flew off with a smack of the hammer to the scraper, I raised my putty knife and hammer and let out a battle cry of victory. Very Braveheart.
It took me drenching towels and literally pouring cups of water all over them to saturate through to the adhesive. I soaked and poured and chipped for hours. All day, part of the night and all day again. I could lift the veneer up inch by inch and glory be if I got under for two inches and could whittle up a section about the size of a child's fist. I had a fist I wanted to give it. Shift, soak, whittle, smack, scrape, shift, soak. Inch by inch. This dresser is seventy-seven inches long. Mmm, you get it now.
The very last area on this dresser got me all excited thinking I could lift up a whole strip. Then it just stuck and split.
I adore this piece. It is stately but homey. It has storage capacity that exceeds what I need but will absolutely wind up filling. I do not typically keep my work, but this precious one resides in our family room as a media console. Everyone watches the t.v. while I gaze at what it sits on.
I still need to find a knob with a three inch screw for the top center drawer, and I need to brush a coat of paint over another drawer which I tested a wash. Then done.
I also removed a drawer to hold the cable box and blue ray player. It is simply lovely. The lighting change is due to different times of the day.