First step is to get rid of the old varnish. I used an orbital sander with 120, 220 and 320 sandpaper grit. I wanted to expose as much wood as possible, so that was necessary. I usually use wood filler where its needed and I cover it with paint. Unfortunately this dresser has more veneer problems than I originally thought based on the pictures. But oh well...

I wanted to make this dresd look light and airy because it was such a big and bulky piece. I whitewashed the wood parts I wanted to expose and used white paint to cover the wood fillers I used which were mostly around the edges. To make white was just use any kind of white paint

Like I mentioned before the edges had most of the veneer damage, so I decided to paint those parts white. For that I used painters tape.

As you could see on the before pictures this dresser had 2x4 for legs. I took those off and added modern legs. Because the dresser was extremely heavy I added 6 legs total so it won't warp down the line.

Because old dressers sometimes have drawers that stick it's easier to add hardware to the drawers if they don't have one already. This was the case with this dresser too so I added brass knobs to each drawer. Once it was done I used spray on polycrilyc and it was time for pictures!

If you like this transformation and would like to see tips and tricks in real time follow me on Instagram @andreapalmai