Before & After: Say Hola to This Henredon Honey

Jennifer Hunter
Jennifer Hunter
Jennifer spends her days writing and thinking about decor, food and fashion in NYC. Not too shabby.
published Oct 16, 2014
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Wooden dresser with six drawers and ornate metal handles, labeled "Before" on the left side.
(Image credit: Leslie Howard)

Leslie found this 1970’s Henredon Alvarado dresser at a thrift store. It was in perfect condition except for the “scraped, scratched, speckled yellow-brown sticky finish with the super-ugly, chunky pulls.” No problem, she could fix that.

(Image credit: Leslie Howard)

From Leslie:

It was a lot of work to update it, removing the gummy old finish, filling the old pull holes (18), and sanding carefully. I used an edgy eggplant color I mixed myself, with a satin topcoat. I spent weeks looking for the perfect hardware, which turned out to be these twisted pewter ring pulls. To enhance the Gothic trifoil motif, I had an online laser wood-cutting company make me quatrefoil medallions that I painted metallic pewter to go under the pulls for visual weight (they look like metal plates to me). Lastly, I painted the bottom strip under the molding the same metallic pewter as the quatrefoils.

I also took home and updated this dresser’s taller mate and gave it the same treatment! Double work, double reward. I think they are modern and dramatic. In the evenings, they appear almost black; when the room is sunny, the dark purple hue is warm and appealing.

See more at City Girl Arts.

Thank you Leslie!