Dresser Refinish

My in-laws are building a house.
Not just any house - a 10,000 square foot, amazing, gorgeous, perfect-in-every-way house.
We don't even get along all that well, and I totally want to move in ;)
I'm kidding.  Mostly.

Anyway, they'll need a lot of furniture to fill the place up.  So a month or so ago I asked my mother in law if there was anything in particular she was looking for.  She mentioned a few things, one of which was a dresser.
I love refinishing dressers, so I started looking for one right away.  I found this highboy style monster at a local thrift store, marked down from $75 to $40.

I had it loaded into the back of my truck and hauled it home.  Then I proceeded to wrestle it out all by myself.  It almost killed me, but I managed to get it set up and start working on it before the hubs even got home from work that night.
:)

The top drawer on this thing was obviously not original.  It was well built, but the molding didn't match and the hardware was different...I decided to take it out.

This dresser is OLD.
When I removed the drawers and cleaned out the inside I found some tickets to a local amusement park from back when you paid for each ride with individual tickets instead of buying a park admission.  I can't find an exact date, but the style of ticket looks like it's from the 60's, maybe?
It had a serious thrift store stench to it, too.  I scrubbed at it for quite a while and used some lysol on it, too.
Then I started sanding.

The piece is solid wood and in pretty good condition, so I decided to stain the top.

I used a mixture of stains, as I'm apt to do. A coat of American Walnut and then 2 coats of Mahogany.  It turned out delicious.

The body I painted heirloom white (spraying a good base coat, then brushing on a Behr paint to finish.)

I decided to add an open shelf where the top drawer would be.  A couple of baskets can fit there, and I love that look.  I purchased 3/4 inch MDF and asked the hubs the cut it for me.  He's better at funny stuff like notching, and cut it so it fit nice and snug.  To install it, I used my favorite adhesive, Quick Grip, and clamped it to dry.

Later, I added some molding so it looked nice and finished.

I'm still deciding what I'll buy to put on the top shelf, but the work is DONE - finally :)

This one took me almost 3 weeks.  I was slow.
But now I have a great Christmas gift for my MIL!

(no worries, it will still be a surprise! None of my family reads this!)

Here she is, all staged!
(wish I could get a better picture! I'm trying!)

And one more shot of the yummy wood finish on top :)

Posting to link up with Kimba's DIY Day at ASPTL!
and It's So Very Cheri's Knock Off Knock Out :)