Queen Anne Highboy Makeover
Highboys are my favorite piece of furniture to refinish. I’ve seen many highboys repainted, they’re pretty, but I’m tiny, I’m barely tall enough to legally ride in a car without a booster seat. Those upper drawers are pointless to me. I do like the long curved legs. It makes a room feel larger when you can see under a piece of furniture. Highboys are generally thinner like a china cabinet so I like to repurpose them into hutches. They work great in a smaller footprint like a townhome, condo or even a tiny home.
As you can see I put a lot of effort into refinishing furniture. When I removed the drawers from this highboy I saw what I thought was solid wood was actually a sheet of wood about a quarter of an inch thick glued to compressed wood. I removed the side panels and replaced them with solid wood. The final was broken on this highboy which is unfortunately pretty common. I leveled off the center and built a new finial base. I sandwiched the center between the new finial base and used a dowel to secure the final. I really love the mid century finishes on this highboy.
It is more labor intensive to cut out the drawer supports and build the shelves, but I feel like it elevates an otherwise outdated piece of furniture. I wrote a how to on this highboy a few years ago that disappeared from my site along with several other blogs. If I can find the photos from that blog I’ll rewrite it it and link it below.
I had so many highboys in storage that I turned a highboy into a sleek wine bar with a crystal chandelier. The buyer didn’t love the chandelier as much as I did, so I swapped it out with a black barn light that she selected. I still have several highboys available for custom order, including a hand carved mahogany dresser imported from Indonesia and an American Drew.
