After months of on and off paint stripping, sanding and repairs I was finally ready to apply a proper wood finish to 80-year-old dress look like something. Even bare it looked about a hundred times better than it did painted and the maple had such a wonderful natural shine to it that I strongly considered just adding a clear coat and leaving it the way it was. But it wouldn’t match any other furniture in the room and a lot of clear coats yellow over time, so I decided to stain it a color that would match the rest of my son’s furniture.
Choosing A Wood Finish
First I went to the local hardware store to look at stains and quickly became overwhelmed with the types of stains (water-based, oil based, gel stains and many more) and the different colors. Each had its own application method, its own strengths and weaknesses and each would only work well with different protecting finishes. I surfed a lot of websites and read a lot of conflicting advice. There are entire books written on finishing wood, so I can’t possibly cover all the possibilities, but a good “primer” (ha!) on the topic of choosing a wood stain can be found over at HowStuffWorks.com.
Wow! Staining the dresser for the first time. What a difference!Adding to the complexity of stain type and coloring is the way certain stains look different on different types of wood. I used my guides to wood types and was pretty sure my dresser was made out of maple, so I picked up a small plank of light maple at the hardware store as well as several different types of stains and colors to run some tests.
I strongly recommend you do this before you start staining a piece of furniture, even if you’re going to try to stain it in a hidden area. I went back and forth with various stains and colors and even application methods before I finally settled on a MinWax GelStain and a Minwax oil-based Polyurethane combination which seemed to yield the best results for me.
Applying the Finish
I also recommend spending $20 or so on a professional staining brush. Sure, you could buy a cheap $1 throw away brush but I was EASILY able to tell a difference in the two test areas when I switched between the cheap and expensive brush. The expensive brushed spread the stain much better and didn’t fall apart after a few minutes. Believe me, when you’re working with stain (much more permanent than paint in many cases) you want to be absolutely sure everything is perfect before you begin.
And so on a warm day in August I put on some old clothes, laid the dresser pieces out in the driveway, and proceeded to stain them all slowly and methodically, exactly as instructed. For the GelStain I applied it evenly with a brush, waited ten minutes and then used clean lint-free rags to wipe off the stain.
My first reaction was an audible, “Wow!”
Once the first piece dried I ran it inside and compared it to the other furniture in my son’s room. It was a perfect match, which made all the testing of colors and products well worth it. After all the staining I took my brush and soaked it in mineral spirits for a few minutes and washed it out, basically returning the brush to an almost-new state.
The 80-year-old dresser before and after refinishing.
The staining was fast, but adding the clear Polyurethane was a much slower process. You can only apply that on a level, flat surface and it needs to dry about six hours between coats. So I would turn the dresser on its side and lay it on a large piece of cardboard in my garage. I would then apply an even coat of Polyurethane slowly and evenly and then, barely breathing, I would clean out my brush and slip out of the garage, trying not to stir up any dust that might float around and land in my clear finish. I decided to apply three coats to every side of the dresser, so I would apply one coat in the morning before I went to work, apply another coat when I came home and then wait until the next morning to apply the third coat. After that dried I would flip the dresser to another side and start all over. It took over a week to completely protect the drawers and dresser.
At last I was done. I put on the new drawer pulls (which again matched the other furniture in the room) and took it into my son’s room about a month before he was actually born. Even if this wasn’t for a baby’s room, you always want to give any refinished furniture a week or two to “air” out the odors.
All in all the project was a fun one and I would definitely consider trying this again with another piece of old furniture. I made a lot of mistakes and took much longer than I originally planned but the sense of accomplishment I feel whenever I walk into that room and see the finished dresser made it all worthwhile.
I have a Maple dresser that I am getting ready to re-finish. I was wondering what color stain did you use to finish your dresser?
Thanks,
Sean
I used the “Honey Maple” colored Gel Stain by Minwax. It has a nice warm honey color that seems to go well with a lot of other furniture (both real wood and fabricated stuff)…
Good luck with your dresser project!
I LOVED reading this whole article! Thank you so much for posting this! I’m so excited to refinish a few of my projects!
What a great post. Thank you for all your details. Do you remember the name of the paint remover gel that you used? I have a very tall and narrow chest of drawers I need to refinish and it has several layers of old white paint and where some of the white paint has chipped I can see green paint. Would like a strong solvent like the one you used to get all the paint off. Thanks!
Thanks! It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. For the life of me I can’t remember the paint stripper I used. I have a feeling most of the chemical paint strippers are similar in how they work, but you’ll want to be sure that you pick up one that is specifically designed for wood! I think I used this Klean-Strip Liquid Paint Stripper
or some variation of it. I used the liquid so that I could spray it on (with a $1 plastic spray bottle I picked up) or paint it on for small nooks and crannies.
Thanks Tom!
I’ve had the same dresser my whole life. My mother did a wonderful job painting it when I was a child (plain white with some stenciling). I’m looking forward to giving it a grown-up makeover now that I’m 25 and in my own apartment. Your advice is great, and I’m even more excited about keeping this furniture.
Thank you!
Please remember when using chemicals in a spray bottle to wear a good face mask so as not to breath in any vapours. Also realize the risk in mixing chemicals. If one doesn’t work make sure it is cleaned off before trying another. Exellent article, learning by mistakes is always the best way to learn. thank you so much for passing on your experiences. The chest of drawers looks fantastic.
This is a great post. We recently painted a dresser we had, it’s great to turn a piece of old furniture into something that looks new! Thank you.
wow great before after shot !
I also enjoyed all your your articles, very down to earth.
I am finishing a dresser I found on a side road. Excellent find and after I get all the magic marker off the draws, I decided to sand them off. It should look ok.