Are you in the market for a new dresser for your bedroom? While you can find very affordable dressers online, any furniture purchase should be viewed as an investment. Just as you would do routine maintenance on a new car, so too should you do some basic activities to keep your dresser in perfect shape for years.

Dusting and Furniture Polish

How often do you dust your home? Most people dust very rarely, but this can be a mistake when it comes to nice solid wood furniture. Allowing dust to layer and cake onto your dresser can ruin the finish over time. Ideally, you should dust your bedroom furniture at least once per week.

When you do, use furniture polish to bring back the natural grains of the wood. Furniture polish helps you keep your wood shiny and new while also protecting the finish. You don’t need to polish your furniture every time you dust it, but you should do so at least once every two months.

Drawer Care and Repair

Depending on the quality of your dresser, you may find yourself repairing the drawers later down the road. Although most dresser drawers are quite durable, misusing them will cause them to deteriorate faster. Luckily, it is fairly easy to repair most dresser drawers.

If you want to keep your drawers in good condition, make sure that you don’t overfill them. If you have to shove and stuff to close the drawer it is too full. The extra weight of the clothes, as well as the pressure to close the drawer, both break down the bottom of the drawer and allow it to start pulling away from the heavier frame.

You should also make sure that the weight of your clothes are evenly distributed. If the center of the drawer takes on more weight than the sides, the drawer will sag, buckle, and start pulling away from the frame.

If a drawer does start to wear out, you have some easy options for repair. Tongue and groove drawer bottoms can be snapped back into place and reinforced with wood glue. Other dressers may hold the bottom to the drawer frame in place with tacks, staples, or small nails, any of which can be easily replaced.

Drawers with felt lining should be treated with additional care. When you buy a dresser from a luxury collection, it is likely to have at least the top drawer lined in felt. This gives you a place to store valuables and delicate items, but you should be careful how you do so. The sharp edges of some jewelry can easily tear the felt. Once that happens, it is likely to deteriorate rather quickly.

You should keep the felt drawer closed at all times to avoid dust. If the felt becomes dusty it will be impossible to clean and make like new. If the felt starts to wear out, hit your local craft or furniture repair shop for some new felt and rubber cement to replace the lining.