#TuesdayTipsWithFallon

Do you ever have trouble with wooden drawers “sticking” when you try to slide them in-and-out? A lot of older antiques are built with beautiful handmade dovetail drawers and function with only the use of wooden drawer slides. They aren’t as functional as today’s metal drawer slides. If you watched last week’s #TuesdayTipsWithFallon (Here is the link to that video tip) this concept is similar in the fact that wood swells in the warmer months and shrinks in the cooler months causing the wooden drawers to stick making them difficult to open. Watch the video below…

For today’s tip I recommend using a candlestick, tea light, a bar of soap or chunk of natural wax, like the kind that I used in the video from Country Chic Paint to help your wooden drawers slide well. Just apply the product to the wood inside your piece of furniture and the bottoms/tops of the drawers that meet or touch that wood. I always recommend using SCENT-FREE waxes/soaps because you do not want to attract any bugs or insects that are drawn to your fruity smelling soap, for example. Also, I still like to go ahead and apply wax to the wooden drawers even if it’s the middle of winter and the drawers are functioning well because it can’t hurt, right?! That way when summer does roll around you hopefully won’t have to worry about it. Keep in mind, this is not a permanent fix . The wax can wear off over-time, so just reapply it when needed.

If the drawer(s) still seems to “stick” and not glide well after you have applied the wax, you may need to sand it and the drawer slides really well to give it a nice smooth surface. If that still doesn’t help, the problem is bigger and there is most likely something wrong with the structure. For example, if someone had a bunch of heavy books or heavy tools in the drawers and they sat there for years-and-years it is likely the wood formed to that heaviness which caused warping and small breaks or tears in the wood. Sometimes you can fix these problem with glue and sanding, other times they need to be replaced, especially if you can see that visible warping has occurred.

I recommend keeping a candlestick or tealight in one of the drawers of these pieces so you can quickly reapply the wax if any of the drawers start to act stubborn!

Thank you so much for stopping by for #TuesdayTipsWithFallon! Make sure you tune in every other week for a new tip! If you want to save this blog post, just pin it to your Pinterest page and/or feel free to share it elsewhere. Thanks again! Happy restoring!!