I recently inherited a beautiful antique dresser that I would love to use, but the drawers stick so badly they’re almost impossible to open. Is there a way to treat the wooden rails/glides so that the drawers open smoothly?

Soap (rub it on the rails its what they used to do back when it worked on mine

Wax placed where the drawer and frame contact each other will help

The wood might have swollen up over time as well, take a little sand paper to the rails.

I don’t know that I’d change (cleaning, refinishing, sanding, adding to or taking away from) anything. I have some OLD furniture that I had the same problem with when I received it from my grandmother. I asked her about it and she said that I probably was putting the wrong drawer in the wrong slot. So, I removed them all and tried the first one in each spot to see which worked best, then the second and the third. Now, each drawer is in it’s perfect spot and slides in and out effortlessly! If it’s really old, chances are it was made by hand and each drawer has “it’s” spot. In other words, the drawers aren’t interchangeable.

My Step Dad always ran a bar of Parafin over ours when they would stick—still works for me!

Have you tried a bar of soap or beeswax on the glides?

That is so true about the the drawers being in the wrong slot! I stripped and repainted my kitchen cabinets & drawers . I took the drawers completely out to work on them. When I put them back in, the drawers just wouldn’t close? easily any more… but I was to busy to mess with them at the time. Fast forward 2 years…battling these drawers every day, then it dawned on me to start switching the drawers to different slots! WELL, my cabinets were all hand built back 75 years ago and YES… each one fits into it’s own drawer spot? They now slide in and out like new. (Better than new with the cheap prefab cabinets they sell today). I’ve been here 16 years and still finding out what a smart man that built this house. He knew what he was doing. Now if I can just figure out what that extra (light?) Switch is for in the main floor bedroom? I’m the 3rd owner, builder is no longer with us….he took his secrets with him!? Lov to see that other people need help with these?

Many ‘extra’ switches actually were to turn an outlet on or off thus allowing a light or? that could operated by the switch.

Some outlets are wired half to a switch and half on all the time. So plug something into every outlet in the room and switch the switch on or off. I had a few of these in my house and it never dawned on me that the outlets would be set up this way even though I knew it was possible to do this I just never expected it.

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