My $10 Cherry Dresser all Fixed Up

So over my 4 day Thanksgiving weekend in between fighting off a cold and my sewing machine breaking (yes I'm devastated), I managed to finish both the projects of my dresser and the door headboard.  I am still deciding if I like the door headboard, it is on the wall. I don't like the pictures I took of it so I won't be sharing it today.  But I will be sharing the finished dresser.  After stripping it and sanding it down I stained it using a cherry finish.  I still have yet to find fixtures that I like for it, so I took some heavy navy seersucker scrap fabric and knotted it to make drawer pulls, which I actually really like, so I may work on creating a more permanent version of those to use.  It also is missing all the keyholes which I may make out of punched tin.

Now in regards to my sewing machine.  A wire is broken in the foot pedal, my wonderful BF spent a long time last night trying to fix it.  He had it working and then it quit :(.  I checked with Sears to see if you can order a new one and you can't, and they offer no other suggestions.  It just seems a shame to throw out the whole machine b/c of the foot pedal.  So I will be searching the internet to find a replacement and hopefully won't have to wait too long, I have so many Christmas projects waiting to be sewn!  So if anyone has an older Kenmore machine working or not and would like to get rid of the foot pedal, I would be happy to buy it from you!

Flea Market Find: Upcycled Door Headboard

Remember the old wood door I got for $5 at the antique shop?  Well I finally have it almost finished.  After having to use Formsby's Paint and Poly Remover on it twice and having the BF pressure wash it, most of the 3 layers of paint finally came off.  And then it just had to be sanded to get the green hue out of the wood.  The pictures below are with one coat of cherry stain.  There is still some work to be done in corners and what not, but I am very happy with how it turned out. 

As you can see it still needs some sanding on the ends as well as in the panels, but I think the panels will have to wait until I get my Dremel Rotary tool for Christmas, until then I will hang it up as is, which I am still figuring that part out!  Now all I need to find is an old door knob and some skeleton keys to complete the look!

My Weekend Recap

So I hope everyone had a good Halloween, I know I did.  Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures once I had my costume on and makeup, but I took a picture of the finished jacket, hat and teapot purse.  This was by far probably the most fun I have ever had in a costume, except for maybe when I went as Rainbow Bright.

So on Saturday, I started to refinish the door and the little dresser.  I used Formby's Paint and Poly Remover,  It actually worked very well considering the door had 3 coats of paint on it.  

After removing the first layer of varnish from the dresser drawers, they were actually very nice (see top drawer in picture below), but it was impossible to get all three to look the same, so I kept going.

After some sanding on Sunday.....

The drawers are only going to need a little more sanding and they will be ready for stain.  The door is going to need another coat of Formby's as well as the rest of the dresser.  So its back to Lowe's for me today!  

Now everyone needs a break from crafting every now and again so I made Martha Stewart's Pumpkin Whoopie Pies , they are delicious and I suggest you try them!