Painted Sunshine Dresser

I happened upon this painted black mid century modern dresser at a thrift store. It looked to be in great shape other than the rough paint job.
I used a Wagner heat gun to strip most of the finish.
I then sanded down the entire piece with 120, then 150, then 220 sandpaper with my orbital sander.
I wanted to see what I had to work with before I figured out what direction I would go on this piece. I had no idea what I wanted to do.
I needed to add some wood filler to a few spots so I kept that in mind when I was decided on a pattern to paint and exposing some wood.
After many hours of thinking and walking away and coming back and taping off many patterns with painters tape I decided on a sun with rays. ☀️
I used a pencil tied with string and taped the string to the bottom center of the dresser. I then drew a half circle with the pencil for the “sun” keeping the string taut.
I then taped off “rays” just eyeballing the distance between each so they looked evenly spaced.
Lucky for me I have a ton of chalk and enamel paints on hand so I just did a rough look with a few colors to make sure they all jived together before fully painting each ray.
After several coats I taped off in between the colors for a crisp edge and painted white between all the rays.
Hello Sunshine!
Can you believe this is the same piece!
That beautiful wood grain tho!
I left the top and legs in their natural wood state once sanded and salved it.
This took a long time to do but was so satisfying in the end.
Find me on Instagram creating
Instagram.com/pickedandposhed
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
Nice job. But just curious - did you look in the drawer to see the manufacturer ? I was bequeathed a piece when and old friend passed and It was a Paul McCobb. Very similar with the black paint job. one owner-my friend. The paper work said it was worth $7500 so I left it black. Tempted to paint many times, but it would destroy the value of the piece. Love mid century and black furniture.