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Before and After

Vintage Dresser before and after

Before and After: Vintage Dresser and Highboy

I was so eager to makeover this pair of dressers that I plain forgot to take a before photo of the highboy dresser. You’ll just have to visualize that it had the same finish as the matching dresser shown below.

vintage dresser before and after

Lets take a moment to talk about the dresser in its before state. It is so bland and lifeless. It’s a mix of 80s peach laminate with mid century legs and hardware. The brass plating was coming off the hardware and the “brass” on the legs was painted on, so that definitely had to go. The laminate was chipping and had some weird sun damage spots. I took a closer look at the drawers and discovered the laminate was placed over top of solid wood. Sadly this was only on the drawers, but it was a very exciting find!

The laminate was so thin, so it was fairly easy to sand off using an electric sander and a heavy grit sand paper. Once the drawers were sanded down, several coats of Danish Oil were applied until they were sealed and the finish was even.

The body of the dresser was sanded and patched because there were several dents and scratches. Once the surface was smooth, I applied a few coats of primer. The final top coat is Benjamin Moore Snowfall White in high gloss Advance.

Here’s the final result of the dresser and matching highboy:

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painted vintage furniture before and after

Before and After: Mid-Century Asymmetrical Dresser

This mid-century modern dresser was picked up a few weeks ago at a Summer yard sale for a steal. It sat in our living room for a while until we finished a few other projects and figured out what we were going to do to it. It originally came with 2 mirrors that had broken frames, were bulky and weighed a ton. Luckily we managed to sell the beveled mirrors and made back our money on the dresser purchase! Who knew there was a market for vintage beveled mirror.

mid century modern dresser

I am totally in love with the lines of this mid-century piece, the asymmetrical design has so much character and allows for displaying books or plants in a unique way.

The surface of the entire piece was in horrible condition, scratches, water damage and missing trim. Very little wood veneer was salvageable, so we sanded it all down, patched and filled all the areas that needed it and primed it with CIL Smart3 primer. The knobs and pulls were super cool, but also in rough shape with the white enamel coming off and the brass peeling badly.

mid century modern dresser
mid century modern before and after

A top coat was applied in high-gloss Benjamin Moore Advance. The drawer fronts are Mantis Green and the body is Snowfall White. The legs and wood trim were sanded down and stained with danish oil in light walnut to add some contrast to all the white. Lastly, the hardware and feet were primed and painted with metallic copper spray paint.

Check out the final results:
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vintage night stand

Before and After: Vintage Night Stand

A while back I refinished a junky white box into a modern mid century style night stand. I ended up keeping it for myself. Ever since then, Andrew has been looking for a vintage night stand to match mine. You could say he had night stand envy.

Here’s the piece we were matching it with, you can read more about this before and after over here

vintage mid century modern cabinet

So we were on the lookout for something that had similar bones. We recently found this little guy:

vintage night stand before and after

This piece was frumpy, especially with that hardware, super short legs and cream paint. We wanted to give it a modern facelift. Right away we ripped off the drawer front, because we knew it was plywood and we wanted a nice wood front to match the other project I did. We went to the hardware store and got them to cut a piece of 1/4 inch maple veneer to size. If you ask your local hardware store very nicely, they won’t charge you for cuts. Well at least that’s what the awesome guys at Windsor Plywood did for us! I think it was because I smiled ever so nicely at the guy. It only cost about $13 for the drawer front and we have so much leftover wood for another project, but I’ve already decided I’m going to keep the thin sheet of veneer to use as a photo backdrop for now.

We brought it home and glued and clamped it to the drawer face. We just used regular wood glue and heavy duty clamps. It sat clamped for about a day. Once it was dry we applied several coats of danish oil and drilled holes for a modern drawer pull.

wood veneer drawers

You’ll also notice we switched out the legs to give it more height so it would work better as a night stand and so it matched the other piece I did. You can find legs like this at Home Depot, but we got ours at a garage sale for pretty much nothing.

The entire piece was primed using CIL Smart3 Primer and the final coat was Benjamin Moore Advance in Tropicana Cabana and Snowfall White.

Here’s the final result of our modern vintage night stand:
Read More »Before and After: Vintage Night Stand