The job is, at this point, around 75% complete.
Since we've been actually using the dresser for the last six months (or so), it's actually sustained some abuse—cat claws and oils have made their way into the soft and unprotected wood all over the place. Nearly all of the wood near the handles were darkened, and a number of drawers had big gouges on top.
So the first step was to try to remove whatever surface damage occured, and minimize the depth of the damage.
The most worrying part were the oils—you can see on the "before" shot below that there were big dark smudges all over the place. Thankfully, hitting these with some 120 grit took all of the stains right out, which was much better than I was expecting.
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| Before | After |
After spending a good two hours sanding with 120 and 220 grit, I cleaned all the sawdust off and covered everything in pre-stain conditioner. This took a good 30 minutes to settle before I hit it again with 220 and let it sit for three hours.
We decided to skip the stain entirely because we like the wood so light. Instead of actually staining it, we've put polyurethane directly over the conditioner—and I've got one coat done so far. Here's what everything looks like with lots of wet polyurethane on it.
This takes 3 hours to dry, and I'm going to head back down to the garage in a few minutes to sand it all again. It gets another coat of poly tomorrow night, and then it gets to sit for three days before we can move it.
Overall, I'm surprised how damned easy this was. And I'm also surprised how nice everything looks so far. Bonus!
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