I bought this piece fully intending to completely sand down and restore, but was convinced by this community to just restore. I’m glad they did, because it will be a keeper for us after a fraction of the work. A good cleaning, restored finish, touch-ups, feed and wax polish, and new pulls. The hardest work was deciding on the pulls.
I have a cedar chest that was ever present in our house growing up. It’s been painted as long as I remember, but I wanted to take it back to wood. Began to scrape by hand and found under the green paint was yellow paint, white paint and some kind of varnish. I can handle the extra work, but was disappointed to find filler in multiple places.
Am I just stuck with ugly blotches, or is there a better solution? Maybe this is why mom stacked layers of paint on the thing.
This piece has been a fantastic learning piece. A beater of a piece that has helped me learn a lot. Stripped bare multiple times because I failed with something new. Today while touching up some varnish, she spun out of my hands and hit the ground. All we’ve been through, and I fumble at the one yard line. I felt like quitting. I’m too heavily invested to actually quit, but it was brutal.
I’ve heeded the advice on here to NOT refinish this piece, instead going the clean and polish path. Hate these pulls, so that will be the big “upgrade” here. I could use some advice on color. I see so many projects made or broken by pull choices, and don’t want to blow it.
Am I a lunatic for thinking I should hand scrape two of these nightstands? Those shaving on top that look like wood are actually just the thick top coating. I hand scraped my first project, but it was a simple 4 legged table. I was proud I did it that way, but at some point, I guess I’m just letting my ego abuse me.
I’ve posted about the trials and tribulations on my first project. All was well until I foolishly tried gel stain in Texas heat, and it turned to gum. I’m in the process of correcting, but am a little gun shy.
Pictures are post 00 steel wool (top only), post gel stain, and pre gel stain.
I liked the Minwax coffee color, but it was thick and blotchy.
Suggestions welcome, and appreciated.
I figure since my first simple project ended with such a deafening thud, why not double down and get even more complex?
Found this little gem at an estate sale. Looks like solid wood, but not sure what. Top looks pine-ish, but not the frame and drawers. Should be high pressure and anxiety inducing, but why not?
Found this beaten down piece of furniture, and thought it a good starter piece. Scraped it by hand, sanded, buffed, conditioned…basically babied it through the process. All the way through conditioning, I was loving how it was turning out. Lesson? I thought I could get gel stain over the whole piece before wiping back. Nope. Gum. Those last pics are after slopping stain on to wet it down, and immediately wiping back. Very disappointed.
If anyone has suggestions other than starting over, I would love to hear it.
I posted some of this elsewhere when I was early in it. I’m a noob, and wanted to try something “easy” as a starter. Got this at an estate sale for $6 (I think), and got to it. I wanted to do it all, so I scraped it manually. I have since patched some holes and sanded a bit. I fear the patches won’t do well with stain, so I’m locked up. Before, during and after pics:
Picked this up to restore, but now I’m afraid it might be something. This is AFTER 2 hours of elbow grease cleaning gunk off of it. Salvage or restore?
I got this in an online estate auction. Looking at it close up, I don’t know what I should do with it. It almost feels sacrilegious to change its raw allure. It’s solid wood, and has many character dents and fills. It seems really, really old.
This is not a flip. I’m a noob, and got this piece for $6 at an estate sale because of its pretty straight forward design. Right or wrong, it’s my first attempt at scraping. There are some dark stains/rings I can’t seem to get out. This is after an 80 grit sand. I’m not good enough at this to know the wood.