Restoring An Antique Dresser

I've done my fair share of furniture painting projects (more of which I will post soon), but I have to say this is my first serious restoration project and it's kinda been learn as I go.....

A few weeks ago my mom text me this picture:

She and my sister were at an estate sale and had found this little antique beauty. She was in pretty rough shape with layers and layers of stain and sealant and she was missing a top, but for $10 she had lots of potential!

I knew the first step would be to strip the years and layers of gunk off so I coated her with paint stripper and scraped it all off. WARNING: it's probably not the best idea to do this in flip flops and shorts, but it was 100 degrees outside and I didn't even consider what paint stripper would do to my skin. Let me tell you, the tiniest little drop burns forever!!

Once the stripper had started to bubble, I scraped everything off the best I could. So far so good, she's looking better....

A few days later, after everything had dried I have her a good sanding to get any other layers/residue off.

The drawers looked pretty good from the outside, but the bottoms were old and brittle and needed to be replaced. A quick trip to Home Depot with my dad and a few cuts later, we had new drawer bottoms and a piece of pine to make a new top.

To make the top the right width my dad cut the board in half and glued it together with wood glue.

And he even got the drawer locks to work!

Now that most of the prep work is done, I'm ready to stain and reassemble everything. I hope to get it finished up this weekend and I know my husband can't wait to have another piece of furniture in our house, so I will post finished photos soon!