Donate or Keep the Old "Baby" Furniture?

A while back my Mom called wanting to know if my husband and I would like two old dressers.  Not being one to turn anything FREE away, I of course say yes.  She quickly points out this furniture used to be my baby furniture and that it's beat up.  Who cares I tell her.  This will be the perfect chance for me to test out the new sander I got as a birthday gift (from my parents of course).  Below are “before” photos of both dressers.    I need to get better at taking “before” and “during” photos but I was so darn excited about this project because it was my first time refinishing ANY type of furniture.  I’m lucky I snapped these:

They certainly are dated, but nothing that can't be salvaged.  As a proud previous owner of this furniture I knew it had been well cared for and didn't have any major issues needing repair other than some nicks and dings. 

Dressers provide lots of uses other than the obvious one.  For example, the long dresser could be used as a buffet in a kitchen or even as an entertainment center.  The drawers provide lots of storage which is a bonus for things such as DVD's or dishes you pull out only at the holidays.  And of course you could always store clothing or linens.  There was no way I would let my parents donate these! 

The first step I took was to remove the hardware.  Since the hardware looked old and was always coming loose I needed to buy replacements.  Hardware isn't expensive if you only need a few knobs.  I needed 26 and so immediately looked online since websites such as www.amazon.com are typically a cheaper place to buy knobs, pulls and handles than box stores. 

If you look at the drawers on the bottom of each dresser, you'll see they have two handles on each side.  As a kid I always used to reach for the center.  Because of this, I decided to buy one pull for each bottom drawer and fill in the holes with wood filler where the old hardware used to be.  BONUS:  It saved me money!  Come back tomorrow for my tutorial for how I refinished these bad boys…