So you’ve found a really cool old dresser, but the drawers don’t work well? It’s a real pain! It is not a problem that many people have. Before you paint that dresser (or not), here’s how to fix old dresser drawers that stick!
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Old The drawers on dressers can be quite damaged. They are more common than we think, and have been around for a long time.
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That doesn’t mean that you need to put up with sticky dresser drawers, broken vintage dresser drawers, or even drawers that are hard to open and/or close.
So here’s how to fix dresser drawers that stick. But we aren’t stopping there. We’ll also cover how to fix broken drawers, how to make old dresser drawers slide better, how to repair dresser drawers, and even how to remove dresser drawers.
First things first, before you can fix old dresser drawers, you need to learn how to remove drawers from a dresser. You might find it easy, or not.
And then we will start at the easiest way to fix drawers and move onto more advanced ways if the drawer is really broken.
How to Remove Dresser Drawers
Most of these really old dressers don’t have a track system at all, and they are super simple to remove. They can be slid out by simply sliding them out.
The bottom of newer dressers often has a track system.
A simple tug on the drawers will usually get them unstuck.
**Before you give the drawer a good tug though, pull the drawer out as far as it will go, and then take a look under the drawer.
There may be a little latch or lever that needs to be pushed towards the bottom of the drawer to release the drawer.
The track system can be found on the side or drawers of dressers. Pull the drawer out to the maximum extent possible and then check the track for a lever.
You can push the lever on either side of the drawer to release it. Give the drawer a gentle tug. The drawer should be easy to get out of the dresser.
How to Fix Old Dresser Drawers that Stick
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- How to Repair Damaged Furniture – Large Holes, Chewed up Furniture Etc.
- How to Paint a Dresser White
- What Paint to Use on a Dresser
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Wax the Drawer Tracks
The easiest and fastest way to fix old dresser drawers that stick is to put some wax on the tracks, or on the parts that slide against each other.
If you think about it, wood against wood doesn’t seem like it would create the best environment for sliding, right? However, a smooth surface against another smooth surface would make it much easier.
Wax does just that. After both surfaces have been coated in wax, drawers will slide in and off much more easily.
You can rub a candle against the drawer tracks, but you could also use furniture wax or a bar of soap to make the old dresser drawers slide easier.
If there are no obstructions to drawers sliding in or out, this method will only work if they are.
Make Sure Nothing is Obstructing the Drawer Track
If waxing doesn’t help much, turn the drawer oven and see if there is anything keeping the drawer from sliding in and out easily.
You may have a nail sticking out from the bottom of your drawer or on the side of your dresser. It only takes one small thing to block the drawer from opening and closing.
The drawer track was damaged by a nail. That nail was causing damage to the drawer track as well!
I made sure that the nail wasn’t holding anything before I removed it with a pair of pliers.
Sand the Sides of the Drawers
If you live in a humid area, there is a very high chance that the wood in your drawers or dresser has swelled.
In this case, sanding the sides of the drawers down can make a huge difference in getting old drawers to easily slide in and out.
Before you sand the drawers, ensure that your dresser was in a climate-controlled area so that the wood behaves normally. If it has been in the garage for a while, bring it inside for a few weeks to see if the wood contracts at all.
If you need to sand the sides of your drawers down, you will notice that there isn’t any gap between the side of the drawers and the side of the dresser. You should leave a little space between the sides of your drawers and the side of your dresser so that they can move freely.
Grab your power sander and take out the sticky drawers. I like to use 60 grit sandpaper at first, and then move up to 220 grit sandpaper when most of the wood has been sanded down. 60 grit is sufficient to remove most wood quickly, and 220grit sandpaper allows for smoother sanding.
**When sanding, make sure to take note of certain areas that need attention, and other areas that don’t need any attention. Only sand in the areas that are tight.
It’s also best to only sand a little bit, and then check your progress so you don’t sand too much off.
Sanding Drawer Fronts to Fit
This also applies to inset drawer fronts as well. If they are too big for the opening, you can sand them down to better fit into the opening.
Before sanding the drawer fronts, you need to make sure the drawers are all in the correct spot, as some dressers are very particular about which drawer goes into which spot.
You’ll also want to make sure the dresser frame isn’t sagging or falling, making the drawer front too big for the opening. If that is the case, you’ll need to repair the frame of the dresser first.
How to Fix Broken Drawer Bottoms
The bottom of old drawers can easily break under a lot of weight. Many times the drawer bottoms need to be replaced or repaired.
Let’s look at how to repair sagging drawer bottoms first.
How to Repair Sagging Drawers
One quick fix on really old dresser drawers is to look at the under the drawer and at the back of the drawer.
Many of these drawers only have small nails holding the drawer bottom to the backside of the drawer.
Inspect this area to make sure the nails are in place, and add some new nails if they are missing.
** Look for nails that are 3/4″ long with a larger round head.
How to Keep the Drawer Bottom from Falling Out
On the sides of the drawers, there are notches where the drawer bottom sits. Sometimes, the bottom of the drawer is just slightly larger than the drawer.
You can cut a new drawer bottom that is a little bit larger. And / or you can add support to the bottom of the drawers.
Choose a square dowel that is smaller than the space between the drawer bottom and the bottom of the side of the drawer. A 1/4″ square dowel should do the trick.
- Cut the dowel into 2-3″ long pieces.
- You should ensure that the drawer’s bottom is in the correct position. Turn your drawer upside-down.
- Glue the dowel pieces along the edge and to the bottom of the drawer. It is common to have six pieces per drawer.
- It is important that the glue drys before you turn the drawer over.
- You can add additional support by putting a few nails through each dowel and into the sides of the drawer. Make sure the nails don’t come out the outside of the drawer!
The dowels will keep the bottom from moving around, but it will also help give support to the drawer bottom so it doesn’t come out of the notch on the side of the drawer.
This is another great idea for drawers that are too sagging.
How to Replace the Bottom of a Drawer
Sometimes the bottom of the drawer really just needs to be replaced. It may be too small or it could have major damage.
Remove the Bottom of a Drawer
Some drawers have easily removable drawer bottoms. Simply remove the screws at the bottom and back of the drawer and slide the bottom out.
If that’s not the case, you’ll need to take apart the drawer.
If you’re working with a dovetail jointed drawer, be sure to take the drawer apart very carefully. You don’t want to break those dovetail joints!
I like to work with the back of the drawer instead of the decorative drawer front if possible.
Typically you can lightly tap a hammer on the inside of the drawer (close to the dovetails) to slide the dovetails out from each other. Do this on both sides of the drawer to remove the back of the drawer.
You may need to remove the drawer track from the bottom of the drawer if there is one. The drawer track is typically held in place by a couple of nails (hopefully not glue like the one in this image).
If there is glue holding it on, use a hammer and a thin chisel or metal scraper to pry off the drawer track without damaging the track itself.
Use the same method to remove the little triangle supports.
Cut a New Bottom
With the old bottom as a guide, cut a new bottom out of 1/4″ plywood. For this project, we used 1/4″ red oak plywood.
** If your bottom needs to be a little bit bigger in one direction, make sure you cut it a little bit bigger than the old bottom.
If you don’t have access to a table saw, you could use a circular saw or even a jigsaw. Your local hardware store may be able to cut it down for you as well.
After the new bottom is cut, run some sandpaper around the edges of the plywood to remove any splinters, and then reassemble the drawer.
How to Fix the Side of a Drawer
Another problem we run into with dresser drawers sticking is when the side of the drawer is broken under the bottom panel of the drawer.
Since there is a notch cut out in the side of the drawer for the bottom panel to slide into, it’s easier for the side of the drawer to break under pressure.
But don’t worry! You can fix it easily without having to replace the whole side. This is especially true if the drawer has dovetails such as this one.
In this case, you can see that the drawer was broken right where the bottom panel of the drawer sits. Whoever tried to fix it in the past just put some nails into the bottom of the drawer to hold it into place, and called it a day.
The problem with that is the nails were digging into the wood tracks in the body of the dresser every single time it slid in and out. And it wasn’t very easy to slide it!
It also meant that the drawer sat crooked because one side of the drawer was shorter than the other.
All of these things make old dresser drawers hard to open!
Repairing Furniture with Bondo
Instead of replacing the whole piece of wood (including the dovetails), you can repair the area and build the drawer back up.
You can use Bondo to build onto the side of the drawer and replace the broken area. Bondo is a fast-drying material that is great for furniture repairs. I’ve used it many times to rebuild a broken corner, fill in missing veneer, or repair broken trim.
Learn more about how to use Bondo to repair furniture and broken trim.
It’s a two-part epoxy that starts to dry very quickly after being mixed up, so you have to work fast. But that’s also the beauty in it. You don’t have to wait hours for this stuff to dry. It is ready to sand after about 30 minutes.
It dries very hard and can be a pain to sand down if you don’t have a power sander.
**(I like the auto body kind of Bondo ((the pink stuff)) because you can see if you have mixed enough pink hardener in it, vs the wood filler and all-purpose kind that have a clear hardener.) You can use the other types as well. The beginning is not always as easy.
Bondo is thinner than clay, so it has to be contained and molded while it starts to set up, so the most difficult part of this process is to build a box out of scrap wood to mold it into the shape we need it to be.
How to Repair the Side of a Drawer
First, remove any nails, or staples holding the bottom in place.
Locate two straight boards that are longer than the side of the drawer. The thickness of the break should be one. So for this drawer, I needed a board that would lineup from the bottom panel to the bottom of the drawer front. It was about 3/4″ thick.
You can make the second board thin or skinny. It just needs to be at least a couple of inches wide to clamp onto the other boards while still creating the bottom of the box.
It’s better for this wood to be a little thicker than you need because you can sand the Bondo down smooth easier than building it up more after the box is gone.
Build a Box Mold for the Bondo
I asked my husband to help hold the boards while we got them clamped into place. Two hands just weren’t quite enough.
Be sure to rub vaseline, wax, or spray pam onto the boards before you clamp them in place. Otherwise, the Bondo will stick to them. You only want the Bondo to stick to the drawer.
It’s also best to scuff up the break with some sandpaper, and then make sure it’s dust-free and wax-free before moving on.
This ensures the Bondo will stick to the drawer.
- Lineup the first board so it is about 3/4″ from the side of the drawer.
- Place the thinner board on top of that, lining up with the side of the drawer.
- Attach the boards to the drawer.
You should have created a box with the top open to put the Bondo into. You can find the box by the place where the drawer’s side was broken.
Fill the Box with Bondo
Once you have the box built, you can fill it with Bondo.
Bondo is a two-part epoxy resin that needs to be mixed together. Once it is mixed, it starts to dry very quickly. Mixing time and time to work are typically between 3-4 minutes. It’s also pretty stinky, so it should be used in a well-ventilated area.
Follow the instructions on the can’s back to mix the Bondo.
Quickly fill the box with Bondo, making sure to push the Bondo into the drawer. You want the Bondo to really stick to the drawer.
You can mix more Bondo to make more.
Allow the Bondo to dry for a while. You can remove the box once the Bondo isn’t sticky.
You should be able to remove the boards from the box by unclamping them. This is because the wax makes them pop off.
Allow the Bondo to dry for at most 30 minutes. However, it is best to let it dry for an hour.
With your power sander, sand the Bondo down to the correct size and shape.
Make sure the drawer fits in the dresser correctly.
Mine needed to be sanded down a bit more to allow for the front of the drawer to push into the dresser correctly.
Old Drawer Repair with Kwikwood
**For smaller breaks, you could use Kwikwood instead. Kwikwood is more clay-like in texture, which allows you to mold it into the desired shape. And then once it’s dry after a couple of hours, you can sand it down more to shape.
How to Repair a Drawer Runner
On old dressers like these, you may find that the drawer runner is very worn or even missing.
This is the part of the dresser that the drawer slides in and out on.
You can cut a piece of wood out to replace the runner!
The runner was worn down. A nail had been damaging it, and it was about to break.
- I cut off the runner and then replaced it with a piece of wood, cut down to size.
- Next, I glued it in place.
It is so easy to slide the drawer in and out now!
I hope that was a huge help to you! When drawers don’t work on a dresser, it can be super frustrating! But now you know how to fix old dresser drawers that stick… and then some more!
Pin this tutorial if you found it useful.
More Makeovers:
- How to Change Hardware on a Dresser
- Staining a Dresser Darker
- How to Fix Broken Trim on Furniture
- Pink Vintage Dresser with Gold Hardware
-Natalie
