A Handsome Vintage Dresser

There's a lot of steps to furniture refinishing. One of the most important is properly prepping a surface to be painted. And no matter what paint you use, and what claims that paint manufacturer might make (ahem chalk paint-looking at you), painting an improperly prepped surface is a fool's errand.

I've had this mid century modern walnut dresser for several months now. It had gotten shunted to the rear of my workshop, where I could actively ignore it. Yesterday we cleared out and re-organized the workshop to be solely a show space, and the walnut dresser caught my eye. I knew I wanted to sand the top, as it looked to be very much intact below all the paint smears and such. I was in the process of sanding the drawer fronts, just to rough up the old slick finish to prep for paint, when I realized something truly beautiful was hidden beneath the faded yellowing fifty year old stain. I went ahead and completely sanded the drawer fronts, then stained and sealed them, to reveal the most spectacular walnut. So pretty. To further play up the wood surfaces, I painted the rest of the case a bright crisp white. The drawers don't have pulls, but rather you open the drawer from it's bottom lip. The designer almost certainly did this to allow for an uninterrupted plane of perfect wood.

*Before*

Here it is on the front left. 

*After!*