Bringing Back That Retro Vibe

Andrea Palmai
by Andrea Palmai
7 Materials
$50
3 Days
Advanced

I love refinishing mid century modern furniture and have been doing a lot of neutral designs with exposed woodgrain black or white paint. When I finally got another dresser on Facebook marketplace I decided to do something different and use some colors.

wood filler

First I filled up the missing veneer on the dresser. it had some chips on the legs and drawer pulls.

this wood filler is pretty good. goes on pink and becomes wood color when it dries. its still a bit lighter than the original wood so you will have to use sharpie or paint to mimic the wood you are filling.

dresser pull is filled


Once the wood filler dried it was time to sand. I used an electric sander and sanded with 120,150,220 sand paper.

now that the dresser was a "blank canvas" I drew up some sketches and settled on a cool retro design inspired by a mid century painting.

quick sketch
The inspiration

I started with the black stripes then red than orange. I used latex paint for these. For the red and orange i also used a primer to get a the best color pay off possible. I did sketch out the lines with a ruler and used frog tape once started painting.

coming along

Here she is after the orange paint! this is when i was getting super excited! Starting to look really cool!

after all the stripes were done, I applied a polyurethane clear coat and let it dry.

This time I decided to go for colors instead of my usual neutral makeover and I just love how it turned out! it may not go with everyone's living room and decor but all you need to find is one buyer! She has found her new owner and I hope they will love this dresser for many years to come!

Find my other pieces on Instagram @andreapalmai

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  • Suzy Castor Suzy Castor on Nov 01, 2019

    WHAT IS THE NAME OF THIS TRIPOD TO MOVE THE MOBILE?


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  • Em Em on Jul 17, 2021

    Very cool. I had the exact canvas in greens behind my couch "way back when". Something about the color of the stain and the colors of paint you used are just right.


  • Mary Russell Mary Russell on Jul 17, 2021

    In the words of one famous shill,'shockingly not bad'.Actually I like it quite a lot.Thanks for not covering it with'chalk'.

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