Upcycling furniture is a great way to have a positive impact on the environment.
It reduces the amount of waste and discarded materials sent to landfills each year. Upcycling also reduces the air pollution, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions required to manufacture new furniture.
Aside from these benefits, upcycling is also fun! For people who upcycle furniture, it’s an excellent way to exercise their creativity and showcase their handiwork.
Andy is a furniture refinisher based in Ontario, Canada.
He finds discarded furniture and completely transforms them into new and exciting pieces.
In this video, Andy shows how he transformed a tired old dresser into a modern piece of furniture.
He bought the dresser in an online auction. His winning bid was an astonishing $1.
When he brought it home, he spent time examining the dresser to understand how it was constructed. Next, he decided that he would change the dresser handles. He removed the current handles and set them aside to sell them.
Andy then sanded off the entire dresser to prepare it for a new color and to be completely revamped. He also decided that he would add scored lines to the dresser as its main design. He used a saw to carve them in.
Keeping with the upcycled theme, he used salvaged wood from a previous project to add more details to the dresser.
He cut strips of wood and attached it to the dresser. He also made four short legs.
Andy also shows how he uses a bent ruler to make a perfect arc.
He then cut it out and matched the angle to the legs. Using scrap wood again, he also made back and side skirts for the new dresser.
Then Andy was ready to work on the color. He used a wood conditioner before staining the dresser to minimize blotchiness. Andy chose to stain the body dark, but keep the body light.
Dark stain on the cracks creates an illusion that makes them look like real gaps.
To do this, he used gel stain in the color “Kona”. Then he used an oil-based paint thinner to wipe the stain. Andy also used gel stain in “Early American” then added another layer of the “Kona” gel stain.
Andy added tone variation to the dresser to make the newly-refurbished dresser unique and interesting.
Again, he used paint thinner to blend the stains together.
He topped the entire dresser with a urethane top coat to protect the wood and make the dresser look brand new.
Lastly, Andy shared in the video that he really liked how the finished product looked after completing the drawers. His original plan of adding 15 handles would have made the dresser look cluttered. So, he decided to attach only one handle per drawer.
The finished product is a beautiful new dresser that would look amazing in any home. You can’t even tell that it was upcycled and the old dresser design is nowhere to be found, except in the shape.
Andy is a wonderful artist and we hope his work inspires other people to upcycle and refurbish old furniture instead of always buying new pieces.
Check out the incredible finished dresser in the video below!
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