Can I Save this Wood Refinish Job? Good Questions

Q: I bought this dresser and matching chest off of craigslist for 50 bucks. They were a pretty gross dark brown, covered in water rings and dings. I sanded them down, but the darker parts were veneered, so they took the stain differently. I'm not sure I'm digging the two tone thing. I kind of just want to scrap my original idea and paint it a high gloss enamel white. What do you think?

Sent by Paige

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Comments (20)

Hmmm its hard to tell from your original post if you had sanded it all down to bare wood or just sanded the top portion and stained over it?

Personally, I really like the dark stain and am generally over the whole lacquered trend, but sometimes things just aren't salvageable and you gotta do plan B.

Great find for $50!!

I hear your disappointment, but even after spending time and $$ on stripping and then paint I think you'll still be happy. Glossy white sounds elegant! Will you use primer first? Good idea. I think I'd be inclined to remove the legs, though, or go with slightly higher ones and more modern/sleek. These low ones are hard to vacuum under chasing those pesky dust bunnies. Good luck with your great find!

Paint it! It looks dingy and unfinished in its current state which detracts from its shape & design (what a bummer after all the sanding and staining!). A fresh coat of paint will show off its nice lines.

You should definitely give this a shot -

I am a finishing and woodworking assistant at a custom furniture shop, and I just recently had to refinish a fire damaged pool table and dresser. Here is how to really remove all of the prior finish and quite a bit of any stain the wood has had applied to it -

You need Klean Strip Strip-X, a chemical stripping agent, some rubber gloves, steel wool (grade 3 or 4), and an old toothbrush.

Just apply the strip-x to the piece with a paint brush and after letting it sit for 30 min. to an hour, remove with the steel wool. The toothbrush is for any small crevices. You may need to apply two coats, but in my experience it works pretty well after just one. That should get your piece ready for whatever type of finish you want.

Good luck! And I hope this helps...

Hopefully sdylanewing advise will work out for you it needs to be dark wood and not white. I agree that the legs could be better, there are always classic hairpin style in chrome which would work well with this style cabinet.

http://www.hiphaven.com/Pages/F_Hairpin_Legs.html

Maybe you can make the darker wood look as perfect as possible (and then add a finish -- I'd use polyurethane, but some consider that sacrilege). Then, if the lighter parts won't accept the matching stain, maybe you could paint those a near wood tone -- terracotta, say, or dark brown -- a color taken from the darker stained woodgrain.

Though I think you did a great job, I think a white enamel might be more forgiving. Plus, white paint on wooden furniture is always a favorite of mine.

Yet another option would be to leave the stain as is on the main part of the piece (I think it looks great) and paint over the lighter part in a high gloss enamel paint (as mentioned by SherryBinNh). But instead of trying to match the wood tone, paint it in a completely different colour - say white, or black, or a bright colour, whatever suits your fancy and works with the room. The contrast between wood and might might look swellegant and modern.

oops...I meant to say "the contrast between wood and paint".

If you like the look, keep the legs..
they look like the originals....

If your finishing research doesn't take you to where you want to be, then paint it....it's still a great piece...
stained or painted. good find!

Thanks everyone for all the great comments! I think before I try stripping it again, I'm going to paint the top two drawers white and the legs and see how that works out for me.

but if all else fails I'll just start over I suppose.

I have a dresser just like this, and have been searching high and low for a solution. It's a great dresser, solid and very heavy...but it's so difficult to clean it up with the wood veneer.

Painting it gloss white will be very easy, considering you've already done the sanding of the veneer so it will stick. Might i suggest you add some type of design to it that you could cut out a silhouette and spray paint.

I've found a few bird/tree/leaf silhouettes that you could wind around the bottom front/right corner. Just a way to jazz it up. This same dresser/design is on my to-do list.

good luck to you and if you remember, maybe let me know how it goes!

How many coats of stain did you use? Did you try doing the lighter portion again, really glopping that stain on and letting it sit awhile? Just a thought! I feel your pain...stripping furniture is exhausting!

At this point, I think paint is your best bet.

Check out the white and yellow bed on AT recently. It was gorgeous. Do the edges and perhaps the top in one color, and the body of the chest in another color.

And depending on the colors you choose, you might want to consider painting the legs black.

The finish was already ruined when you got it, so nothing lost in just painting it.

It's amazing to me that you'd have a room where this would work either as brown stained wood or white gloss paint.

Which works better in the room? Start there.

You should try General's Gel Stains. They are semi opaque stains that can be applied over other finishes (meaning you won't have to sand it back down to the bare wood to use it.) Typically, when you have 2 different woods that need to be matched the darker the color you choose, the more success you will likely have. I would try their Java finish. It is almost black. I think this dresser would look great in that color.