Fiber Dreams

I took a couple photos of the dresser on my way out to the grocery store this afternoon—again with the camera in the cell phone, so no great shakes, but I know you’ll cope…

The photo on the right is the drawer-less, top-less dresser. In the center, Dave working on the top piece, trying to get the rest of the paint off the edge. The right, a stack of the four main drawers, plus the piece that usually sits on top and holds the two smaller drawers, and the curved, decorative piece off the top is on the top of the stack. The two small drawers have been re-glued and re-screwed so they’ll hold together better, and were sitting on the radial arm saw table to dry.

The “stripping costume” wasn’t nearly as fun today as it was last week—blame the fog. Before he’s done, I think Dave’ll probably take the thing completely apart. So far he’s removed the top two drawers, and the main top of the dresser. Everything’s loose, and needs to be tightened up. That’s his excuse, anyway. It’s easier to remove the paint when you have a long straight stretch without curves and angles, so that’s his other excuse. Either will work for me. the scroll-y bits are giving him the biggest headaches so far. Difficult enough to get paint off of rough edges, much less curved ones.

I talked to Dave’s dad, Bill, for a bit this afternoon. He told me a tiny bit about this dresser’s history. It seems that Dorothy had had it pretty much all her life, but didn’t have room to take it with her when she moved away from Minneapolis, gave it to Dave’s mom at that time. I assumed that Dorothy was Dave’s grandmother. Turns out he also had an Aunt Dorothy. Both Dorothys lived in Minneapolis. I wonder which one Bill meant… I’m sure I’ll talk to him again before too long. I hope I remember to ask. Either way, Dorothy had the dresser pretty much all her life before giving it to Dave’s mom. What I love most about the piece is that in spite of its clearly being made from re-claimed wood, whoever made it cared enough to round all the corners, and put decorative pieces at the top and bottom front of the dresser. They just don’t make things that way any more…

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website