Dresser Redo Before and After

A few months ago I found a vintage mid-century modern dresser on Facebook Marketplace. This dresser was in pretty good condition until we scratched it on the way home. At this moment we decided to do a dresser redo before and after the transformation.

This dresser came with a huge mirror that is intended to sit on top of it, but we decided to hang that mirror somewhere else in our home instead. The dresser just so happens to be a Russel Wright Star Dust 516 dresser with a mirror! Apparently, these can go for up to $1000 and we found this one for $100!

The original color is a very yellow wood color with a clear coat on top. Since we had to fix a deep scratch we decided to sand the whole dresser down and lighten it up a bit by staining it.

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Dresser Redo Before and After

There were quite a few steps to take to get this dresser exactly how we wanted it.

By far the most labor-intensive step was the sanding. Why buy a secondhand piece of furniture if it’s so much work?

A lot of older furniture was made stronger and with real wood which makes it easier to fix and will stand the test of time.

Another reason why I like secondhand furniture is I can make it exactly how I want for our home and it is one of a kind.

Raise the Grain

The project started by raising the grain. This is a simple process to fix a deep scratch.

By adding water to a scratch in wood it will raise the grain so it doesn’t have to be sanded as deep. I did a full blog post on HOW TO RAISE THE GRAIN.

So this project started by adding some water to the deep scratches and letting that sit before the sanding process.

Sand the Dresser

I got the dresser back to bare wood with 100 grit on the Bocsh orbital sander. When sanding make sure you don’t stay in one area for too long.

Keep the sander moving. This took away all the scratches and the previous polyurethane.

I sanded the drawer faces and sides too. All the curved edges had to be sanded by hand.

A general sanding rule is, don’t skip more than one sanding grit size.

Start with 100 grit, go to 120 grit, 150 grit and finish with 220 grit.

The longest process is the sanding on any older piece of furniture.

Stain the Dresser

When it comes to staining always read the instructions and follow them because every stain is a little different.

Start on an area that is easy to change in case you don’t like the finished look. I started with the drawer face. This way you don’t have to sand the whole dresser again if you don’t like it.

When I first started staining I put it on too thick and I didn’t get the look I wanted. So I wiped it off and sanded it back to wood again for the second try.

This time I stained it with a thinner coat and made sure to wipe it off sooner than before. My personal favorite is using old t-shirts for the rags to wipe away the stain.

After waiting a day I added a second coat to give it a more even finish.

I wanted to see the wood grain coming through the stain so it looked more like a whitewash.

Clear Coating the Dresser

Start by lightly sanding the stained dresser with 320 grit just to get it smooth.

Then brush off the dust and then wipe it again with a damp rag. Make sure it is completely clean and dry.

I started with a thin coat of Minwax polycrylic and then waited for it to dry. Once it was dry I sanded it with 220 again.

I repeated this until I had 3 coats on all sides and drawer fronts.

On the top surface, I did a total of 5 coats with sanding in between. Don’t sand the last coat of course.

The Finished Dresser

Now we have a one-of-a-kind piece of furniture for $100. We were lucky to find a unique mid-century modern piece of furniture at such a great price.

If you are looking for furniture to fix up check out Facebook Marketplace and check often because there are new things popping up every day.

Dresser Redo Videos:

I documented how I redid this dresser, from the moment it was scratched till it was finished.

Raise the Grain Video:

How to raise the grain on a deep scratch.

Dresser Before and After:

Here is the full process of how to renovate a dresser.