Tukiyeem: Makeover of a White Chest

We bought this chest in 1991. The last time I did anything to the finish it I was 8 months pregnant with my first child. I remember it being cold and me painting it in the garage with Kilz. We used it as a dresser in the nursery and the top was a changing table. I shopped the house when we grew a dining room with our new addition and it became a little sideboard for the new space. But every time I walked by it, the chest just kept reminding me of the nursery. So the week my 5 year-old went to kindergarten, I used this chest to adjust to the fact that no more of our babies will ever be in the house, a melancholy week for me. So, it was time for this chest to grow up too.

(This is a re-post from 2010.)

I stripped the white paint off of the chest. This is the stripper I used.

I started with a drawer to see how this stripper worked. I have stripped a piece of furniture before but it was a few years ago.

The stripper worked really good. As you can see the paint came right off but, the primer has to be sanded off. Thank goodness for my orbital sander.

The knobs are coming off for a hand sanding later.

Here is the drawer after sanding with the orbital sander.

After the orbital sander I switched to the sanding sponge with a medium grit to get as much of the white paint off as I could. But if you notice, I don't get it all off. I like the look of the white paint in the dings and grooves. It gives the appearance of something antique with white milk paint in the cracks.

After a good dusting, it is time to pre-treat the wood before staining it. I used Minwax Pre-stain. I would think it is a mix of Linseed oil and mineral spirits. Although, I couldn't find the ingredients on the label. (The rags used from this step become highly combustible dispose of them carefully after use.)

The natural pine on this chest is pretty, but I wanted a richer color so I decided to stain it. I used Miniwax Polyshades in Pecan Satin. This was the warm tone I was going for. Note: the pine wood has to be pre-treated before the staining. It is a soft wood and the wood fibers will take the stain very uneven without a pre-treatment. The pine still doesn't take the stain perfectly even being that chest is made of many pieces of wood that will all take the stain differently.

The final step is to "sand" again with a #0000 grade steel wool. This puts a satin smooth finish on the wood. After you can again apply another layer of stain and "sand" again with the steel wool and then you are done.

I hand sanded the knobs entirely with a coarse grade sand paper and the sanding sponge. I would believe the knobs are made of a different wood entirely because they were a lot darker than the pine. Here the knobs are after pre-treatment and stain done in the same manner as the chest and I have them drying between the slats in our swing.