An Antique Federal Dresser

This antique mahogany and mahogany veneer dresser made c.1925 knocks my socks off. A client spotted it at a thrift store and snatched it up to have me refinish for her. She has a great eye; under that old surface and considerable veneer damage was still an excellent dresser. She brought it over to me and I set to work right away. There was a large chunk missing from the veneer of the top, luckily all in the last 1" before the back. I filled the missing bits and sanded, stained, and sealed the top. To hide the damage I also added a small decorative lip to the back edge. It looks lovely with the piece, and covers the mars completely. As you can see from the Before and After picture, the bottom lips of several of the drawers had also suffered veneer loss. The client hoped to have the drawer fronts sanded, stained, and sealed rather than painted. I removed the remaining loose and damaged veneer from the drawer fronts  and then filled those sections. I was able to salvage everything from the thin inlay stripe inwards, and so I painted up to that point, meticulously, by hand, it took hours, but how pretty is the end result!! Absolutely worth it!