Repair Broken Or Cracked Inlay Furniture, step by step

Folks, meet the dresser of my beach house dreams. Perhaps you’ve already been introduced on Instagram, but let us dive into our enjoy story (think: The Notebook, but with a dresser and a person instead of two people).

I in fact found this remarkable piece of furniture on Craigslist. YES CRAIGSLIST! Sorry I am screaming, but you can imagine how shouty this whole experience made me. And dancey. And weepy (I tear up over striking furniture when I feel like it is fulfilling its furniture destiny). Yes, I simply typed the words furniture destiny.

Anywayyyyy, it is safe to say this is the best Craigslist score of my life since I got it for $400 and the exact same dresser right now sells for $1,829 (!!!) at Restoration Hardware. The woman selling it on Craigslist originally listed it for $650. She had purchased it for $1200 at HomeGoods and even had a photo of the price sticker that was still on the back of the dresser in her listing. And as much as I enjoyed it (OH HOW I Enjoyed IT) I simply did not have that in the budget for any dresser at the beach house – which is where it felt destined to live.

So I did one actionable thing to assist myself get over it, which was to email her and say “your inlay dresser is so lovely but I am afraid it is out of my budget – I am sure someone will snatch it up, but if you do not happen to sell it and ever decide to lower your price please email me as I’d ENJOY to buy it!” She sweetly emailed back and said “yup, not willing to lower the price yet but I will keep you posted.” I stifled a few tears and tried to accept the fact that I’d never feel the warmth of this dresser’s embrace.

But if you know me, I am incapable of moving on when something in the back of my head is banging around (I call these “persistent ideas” and sometimes John calls them “being in denial”) so I refused to buy any other dresser for that nook in the bedroom because I hoped to hold out for the beach house dresser of my dreams (I also call this “patience” and John sometimes calls this “being stubborn”). But then, miracle of all miracles, over a month later I got an email. And it was my dream dresser’s owner, saying “Ok, no nibbles on the dresser for $650 so I will do $400.”

Now $400 is likely the most I have ever paid for anything secondhand in my life, and she mentioned a few of the inlay pieces needed repairing, but I’d easily pay around $250-300 for a dresser for that nook from some other place like Target or Ikea and this is an extra special solid inlay dresser that sells for nearly $2K at Restoration Hardware. I made the same case to John, who was in fact truly into it too.

So that is how this beauty came to live with us at the beach house (trust me I was tempted to keep it at our house, but we did not have the ideal spot). And then came the second obstacle in my dresser enjoy story: repairing those cracked and shattered pieces. You could hardly notice them in the shots I posted on Instagram, but this was the corner of the dresser as we picked up it. Looking fairly rough, eh?

If you’ve ever come across an inlay mirror, tray, or furniture piece in a store with a pleasant little “as-is” discount (like at HomeGoods) it is typically because something has been popped out or cracked or smashed… which might deter you from taking it home. But wait. Do not give up on them simply yet.

I did a little research and learned that many inlay pieces are filled with plaster between the tiles, so I fairly swiftly made the mental leap that some joint compound (aka: spackle) would be a good, straightforward Hands-on option to fill those cracks. It is sandable so you can get it fairly smooth, and once it dries you can paint it to match. So that is exactly what I chose to try. Here is how things looked after I spackled the cracks to fill them in.

Next, I simply used the paint we had on hand and attempted to match the colors as closely as I could. Remember: paint consistently dries darker, so you want to aim for a color match that is ever so slightly lighter than whatever you are painting.

The blue-gray was in fact fairly straightforward to match with the colors we had on hand (the dark blue we used for the tub and our soft sand wall color mixed together to create nearly an exact match) but we did not have anything yellow sufficient on hand to match the missing inlay piece in the front right corner, which is why you see that bottom “tile” looking a little whiter and rougher in the photo below:

It is not ideal yet – but now that I know this method works, I am planning to bring some yellow paint the next time we go to Cape Charles so I can mix up a closer match for that area. You will also notice I painted that missing inlay circle on the side (see how it is gone in the picture below) so I will touch that up too. Spackle tends to shrink a little as it dries, so I also realized after painting it that it could have used a second coat to smooth things out even more, so I think I will do one more “plaster coat”, sand it smooth, and touch up the paint so it matches even better once I have that yellower paint on hand.

But even as it looks right now, it is a whole lot better than it was! You truly have to be looking for the patched areas to even notice that there has been some work done on this piece in person thanks to the busy pattern, which is truly quite forgiving!

sconce / similar mirror

You also may have noticed that we hung a mirror over it (remember this one from our second house’s guest room?!) and brought in curtains, which we still need to steam (these are Lenda curtain panels from Ikea – we simply cut off the tabs and used ring clips to hang them). With those touches, this front bedroom is truly truly close to done. There are even coat hangers in the closet! Simply do not look too closely at the art in those frames yet (it is still the stock photo that comes with it).

bench / rug / blue blanket / frames / curtain rods / curtains

I enjoy the airiness of this room. It feels interesting thanks to the high contrast bed frame and the dark curtain rods, yet soft and soothing thanks to all the textiles (the curtains, the bedding, the rug), and the little details – like the spool legs of the side tables, the geometric pattern on the lamp base, and the large framed art piece – add simply sufficient “something” to keep things from feeling flat.

art / headboard / rug / blue blanket / side table / lamp

But I still have to hand it to the real stars of this house – like the vivid heart pine floors that we had sanded and clear-sealed and the doors that we stripped back to their original color. They are such a pleasant balance with the cooler beachier colors in the room.

Look at that solid wood knob and the little keyhole under it. Is it weird if that makes me want to tear up too?

P.S. Want to know what paint colors we used or where a certain item in the beach house came from? We created a full source list right here for ya. And if you wanna see more pics & posts about this beach house renovation, we have shared dozens here over the past year.

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