From Dark to Blonde

I started sanding the drawers first because I wanted to see what kind of wood is underneath the dark varnish. started sanding with 120/180/220/320 sandpaper grit

after sanding the drawers I saw that it was a lighter wood underneath. Almost white! So I knew i wanted to leave it as is or white wash it a bit. It had a couple of imperfections that because clear once it was all sanded down. I used wood filler for that and once it was dry I sanded those down as well.

I needed this chest of drawers to be a certain height so I took off the old legs and added 10 inch gold hairpin legs this made it 35 inches tall. Exactly what it needed. Hairpin legs were purchased from Amazon.

The wood filler was sanded down but as you can see it's a different color. You can either paint it and try to match it to the original wood color or just paint the dresser. It seemed most of the imperfections were towards the bottom of the dresser so I wanted to leave the top natural and paint the bottom

I used painters tape for delicate surfaces to mark the bottom of the dresser which i painted white. For this is used Valspar furniture and cabinet paint which can be purchased at Lowe's. This is after the first coat. I applied 2-3 coats.

I also painted the drawers but wanted to leave the pulls raw wood, so i used the same painters tape to cover those areas

If you like this transformation follow me on Instagram @andreapalmai where you can see real time process and tips!