Refinishing a Thrifted Dresser

By far the most challenging piece of the room. This dresser gave me a run for my money, but I am so happy with how it turned out and love the charcoal color it brings to the room. Read below how I refinished it, and how it turned out opposite of how I had planned but ended up being exactly what the room needed.

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The Original Idea

Have you seen the stripped furniture trend on Instagram and Pinterest where folks spray down thrifted furniture with oven cleaner, hose it down, and out comes a beautiful natural piece? Natalie from My Vintage Porch has done this a few times and I love the look of the finished product. The tutorial I was attempting to follow uses oven spray cleaner, and good scrub, and a hose to achieve the desired result, and I was anxious to give this a try!

I should probably mention that my original ORIGINAL idea had been to order a dresser from Amazon, and I did that, but it wasn’t as charming and I reeaaalllyyy didn’t want to put it together!

Getting Started

This dresser went into the bedroom of my My Happy Haven client, and I wanted a sturdy dresser without breaking the bank. The client’s room being made over was originally a porch, and there was no closet in the room.

After deciding to return the Amazon dresser, I needed to quickly find a replacement. I decided to visit our local Habitat for Humanity Restore to see what I could find, and hit the jackpot at the first stop where I found this vintage Hooker Furniture dresser.

Does this dresser remind me of the furniture from houses I entered during my childhood? Absolutely does.

The Process

After posting to Instagram that I’d found this dresser, a friend reached out with some product suggestions she had used before that worked well for her. I then purchased Citristrip and began applying it with a paint brush.

I applied one thick coat to the whole dresser, and then wrapped it in plastic for the night.

The next day I began by scraping the varnish off, and this is where I began having my doubts that the stripped piece of furniture may not turn out as I had originally planned.

The varnish was thick and did not want to be removed. I’m not joking when I say I spent roughly 12-15 hours attempting to scrape this thing clean.

After scraping for hours, hosing it down, and scrubbing with no progress on the remaining varnish, I decided it was time to call on the professionals.

Change of (Better) Plans

I’m not going to lie: it was tough coming to terms with this dresser not being finished as I originally had hoped, mostly due to all the time I’d spent trying to make that happen.

But I noticed myself getting excited about the project all over again when it dawned on me that I could use some of my favorite chalk spray paint to finish this piece, and the color I had in mind would look amazing in the room.

I began by asking our friend who paints professionally what his opinions would be on my idea, and any other guidance he might give. Giant shoutout to Greg for recommending some products to me and talking me through a few things!

Greg first suggested I use Cover Stain spray paint primer. He said this stuff will stick to anything, and it definitely did here!

Once two coats of primer were applied, it was time to add the magic.

While waiting for coats to dry, I also sprayed Bar Keeper’s Friend on the hardware to give them a quick refresh.

As for the dresser color? It was an easy decision to use Rust-Oleum chalk spray paint in the color Charcoal. I’ve used this exact spray paint before when I diy’d some textured vases. I loved the color and the matte finish.

The Dresser’s All Dressed Up

After two coats of spray paint, we have a finished dresser! This process ended up being the best for the room because the Charcoal color fit so well with the rest of the color scheme, and I really believe the stripped wood would have clashed with the burnt trim the client has throughout her home.

So tell me, have you stripped furniture before? Or have you used chalk spray paint?

I cannot recommend this one from Rust-Oleum enough, and am so glad I was able to use it for this project.