A Beginner's Guide to Furniture Refinishing: Giving a Dresser A New Life

Unlike my previous furniture refinishing attempt, this post will be a much more comprehensive look at taking an old piece of quality furniture and giving it a new life. I went from 0 to 60 (which is pretty normal for me) and took on a pretty challenging project. As you will see later in this post, this particular piece has actually had many lives already, and I consider it a privilege to give this dresser yet another one. I hope you find this beginner’s guide to furniture refinishing helpful 🙂

An Important Note: This was actually a huge project and ended up taking months. Did I enjoy every part of this process? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Did I want to quit several times and feel an overwhelming sense of despair at all the time and effort I was sinking into it? YES. Do I love the final result? ALSO YES. I don’t say this to discourage anyone from attempting something similar, more to normalize these feelings as a likely part of the process!

The Piece

When I purchased my house earlier this year, I inherited this dresser. It was quite heavy and the previous owner left it in the kitchen in case I was interested. They had purchased it from Construction Junction: a Pittsburgh reuse center. When they brought it home it was covered in a dark brown stain. They covered it in white paint and replaced the hardware (the center pull didn’t actually fit and was just hanging). While they refinished this piece their own style, it wasn’t mine, and I decided to refinish it yet again!

A Beginners Process

Step 1-Research

The first step in any beginner’s journey is to research, so that’s where my beginner’s guide to furniture refinishing will begin! Since my only experience working with furniture was my IKEA Alex hack, I was basically starting from the beginning. Two resources that I cannot recommend enough are the following Youtube channels:

Between these two creators I was able to piece together the process from beginning to end. I also loved Angie’s style from Transcend Furniture. I got the idea of mixing paint and stain from her work.

Step 2 – Stripping

This. Was. The. Worst. I will probably never again take on a project this size and complexity when it comes to paint stripping. It took a really long time and was really messy. I chose to use Citristrip because I was doing this inside and wanted a relatively non-toxic option. This option also allowed me to throw away the waste in the trash as opposed to having to worry about serious chemical disposal. I used a tutorial from Coastal Upcycling for the specific process.

I spread the goop on a workable section of the piece, covered it with plastic wrap, and let it sit for a few minutes. Then, I just scraped off the goo! I ended up having to do every surface about 2-3 times to remove all the paint and underlying thick stain. Cut up credit cards were my best friend when it came to the detailed drawer fronts.

I will be honest, the drawer fronts nearly did me in. Having to scrap off the liquified paint and prevent a layer of sludge from building up over the wood was really, really difficult. I did my best and gave it a rinse at the end with mineral spirits and a scrub with a plastic brush. It truly took forever.

Step 3 – Sanding

Sanding also took a really long time with the level of detail on the drawer fronts. My arms and hands were very sore after this step. I had to use folded up sand paper for hours to get the details sanded down and remove what I could of the remaining paint/stripper sludge. The large, flat sections on the top and sides went very quickly with my orbital sander, however, and were very satisfying. I used a 180 grit to give the painted sections a scuff-sand, and sanded everything else down to a 220 grit to prep for staining.

Note: If I had the patience I would have used oxalic acid after sanding. This would have evened out the color and removed hardware stains from the drawers. However, I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and so I made peace with the inevitable imperfections.

Step 4 – Repairing

The dresser was in relatively good shape, but even so I had some minor repairs to make. I filled small gouges on the top with wood filler, and did the same to large cracks on the cabinet front. One of the base corners had been badly damaged at some point, and so I reconstructed that pressed wood section with wood filler as well. In addition, a few of the dovetail joints for the drawers had come loose so I glued those back into place.

Step 5 – Staining

Staining was actually pretty fun. I used Varathane Gel Stain in Cherrywood as I wanted a deep red color. I followed the directions on the container and repeated a second time over all the pieces.

Interestingly, this is the step I finally realized this piece had had many more lifetimes than I had previously thought. The reason there was a thick layer of dark stain below the paint is because decorative drawer fronts were made out of a different wood than the rest of the dresser. The fronts were clearly not original, but rather had been glued to the original oak veneer drawer fronts! This had clearly been someone else’s project before mine! In the end, the color came out consistent enough for me not to mind, even though the quality of the oak veneer on the top and sides was far superior to that of the wood used for the carved fronts.

Step 6 – Painting/Finishing

After staining, I taped up the dresser and painted the frame with Coal Black paint by Fusion Mineral. I used two full coats and then touched up sections after moving the dresser to its final home. I also covered all the stained sections in a coat of Odie’s Oil as a protective layer.

Step 7 – Cleaning Hardware

I used the same technique as in my door hardware refinishing post to clean the hardware of the remaining white paint. I followed it up with a little bit of Brasso on the hinges. I purchased new pulls from Wayfair, and two decorative cicada knobs from Etsy for the center cabinet.

Final Thoughts

I truly love how this came out. I will definitely be cherishing this piece for a lifetime. Two main things I might have done differently:

I honestly could have just painted drawer fronts to avoid the pain of stripping/sanding them. To keep that two-toned look I could have tried painting the fronts and staining the frame (the opposite of what I did).
While I don’t regret skipping the oxalic step for my mental health, it would have evened out the color on the drawer fronts and gotten rid of the hardware stains. Oh well! The imperfections give it a bit of a rustic look 🙂

I hope you have found this beginner’s guide to furniture refinishing helpful. And remember, don’t feel discouraged if you hate the process of a project at certain points. The key is to find the balance between effort and enjoyment and you won’t know until you try!