Finding The Perfect Piece

Wahoo! Hi friends!  I've spent a lot of time pondering what the focus of my blog would be, and I've decided that I can't have one specific theme because there is so much I want to share. So here goes nothing.  I would consider myself a relatively crafty person.  I love finding an old piece in order to make it new again.  This past summer, I searched garage sale after garage sale, and thrift store after thrift store in hopes of finding my version of a perfect dresser for my room.  The checklist for a "perfect dresser" in my book includes solid wood, a fixer-upper, and it had to have some kind of personality to it.  It took me almost all summer to find one that I got excited about.  I finally found it at a garage sale.  It was just what I was looking for, it was a solid wood, light-cherry stained dresser.  It needed work, it was missing half of the drawer pulls and it had a few dings on it.  The asking price was $75. After some negotiation, I paid $50.  I spent a few hours in my garage staring at my new-old garage sale find, contemplating how I would make it my own.  After a lot of thinking, I rounded up all of the supplies I needed: stain stripper, brushes, gloves, a tarp, mineral spirits, sandpaper, and stain.  I chose a dark stain called Espresso.  My grandma had just moved in with my parents over the summer and she is basically a design/DIY/antique guru, so her pointers were really helpful throughout the whole process.  If you're ever considering sprucing up a nice wooden piece of furniture, don't paint over it, take the time to strip it and refinish it.  Don't believe someone who says stripping furniture is hard.  Stripping furniture isn't hard; it just takes some time, effort, and a little bit of elbow grease.  Plus, it's well worth it in the end.  The entire process took about two and a half weeks.  I re-used most of the drawer pulls that came with the dresser.  For the empty drawer pull holes, I went to Hobby Lobby (when the drawer pulls were half-off, of course) and took roughly three hours (I'm not exaggerating) figuring out which pulls would complement the dresser the best.  I'm ecstatic with the end result. I know I will have this piece for a long time to come, and the satisfaction of refinishing a big piece on my own is most rewarding.