After finishing the bed, I decided my next big project would be a dresser.
I didn't remember seeing any dresser plans I liked when I was looking at beds, so I
decided to make my own. I had seen a Fine Woodworking article about how to
engineer a chest of drawers, so I decided to follow their guidelines. I took measurements
from our old dresser and made everything a little bigger. I planned for drawer slides,
but otherwise I stick pretty closely to the advice from FWW. There were a couple setbacks,
but it's pretty much done now. I have decided to refinish the top because of some defects
from the first time around, but they don't show up in any of the pictures I've taken.
For the dresser's finish, I used a wipe on tung oil blend on the sides, same as the
bed, but I brushed on varnish for the top because I wanted something a little
tougher. I also filled the pores on the top. I did all that to make the top smooth
and tougher because we have a tendency to pile stuff on top and I didn't want the
finish to get scratched. In this picture, the corner of the bed is just visible. The
moulding, legs, and finish on the dresser were all chosen to match the bed as closely
as possible. As I have time, I'll take more pictures to show how they're similar.
There are lots of details I haven't gotten around to writing down yet (like my adventures
with the Blum Tandem drawer slides, but I'm pretty busy with other things now. I'll
write more as I can get to it.