Out with the Old and in with the ....Old

So I finally finished our "New" TV credenza (Get the back story here). This was one of my first wood finishing projects. Usually when dealing with wood furniture I just paint the piece, but this project involved stripping and sanding. It was tough but the final product was worth it!


Here's the before piece; a dresser I bought off Craigslist about 2 years ago that we had used in Con-Man's room. It came with a mirror and everything!

And here it is now! All freshly painted and stained serving as our "new" TV credenza:

Like I said, it was a long process to get it to this point but well worth it. I started off by stripping the old paint off the drawers using a paint stripper.

I followed the directions on the can- you just brush the stripping solution on, wait about 10 minutes for the chemical to work, then scrape it off. I used a scraper with a metal edge. I tried using one I bought from Walmart that was cheap and had a plastic edge, but it didn't work well at all.

Most of the paint came off pretty easily, but some of it did not. 

My original hope was to strip off the paint and use the original wood stain underneath. But the paint came off unevenly and some of the veneer came off as well.

So I ended up having to sand everything off completely on all 8 drawer fronts. Hooray... Once that was done though the wood looked pretty nice. I was about to stain it when I noticed something- when I was using a damp rag to wipe off the dust from the sand the wood had a nice color to it. I liked it and decided to forgo staining and just put a clear coat of poly.

I skipped the water based poly because it was more expensive, but I wish I had shelled out the extra bucks because this stuff smelled! I put 3 coats of Semi-Gloss poly on each drawer. I tried using a brush meant for staining on the first coat but it left brush marks. So for the 2nd and 3rd coats I used a foam brush to ensure a smooth finish. 

Once the drawers were finally done I moved on to the credenza. I gave it a light sanding to even out the finish then rolled on a white primer/paint combo.

I rolled on 2 coats of the white paint letting it dry completely between coats.

My original plan was to buy new hardware. The hardware that came with the credenza was a brassy color that I had spray painted silver when I first bought it. But the only places in our town that sell hardware are Walmart and Ace- neither place had anything that caught my eye. (The things that did were too expensive). So for the time being I reused some spray paint I had from another project and repainted the knobs to go with the new finish.

To make the piece functional for it's new use I removed drawers that were behind the center doors and drilled holes in the back of the credenza to accommodate wiring.

All the drawers are perfect for storing DVDs and other things that seem to accumulate in our living room.

I love the newly finished wood and the way it contrasts with the fresh white paint.

Now that our credenza is looks all good and snazzy I need to get started on reupholstering those orange chairs! 

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