Refinishing Furniture for Beginners | Antique Dresser Makeover | Know Can Do

hey it's clara and welcome to no can do i believe you don't know what you can do until you try and today i tried refinishing an antique dresser that my friends austin and kayla gave to me for free if you like diy projects furniture flipping or want to learn how to refinish something for yourself you are in the right place so to see what i did what i learned and all the mistakes that i made just keep watching [Music] this dresser is hardwood and was in pretty good condition except for the top which had a lot of cut marks and dings and scratches on it and the drawers needed a little bit of work as well so i just decided to refinish this dresser the first thing i did was to give this dresser a good clean i used simple green which is a good degreaser i just let that sit for a few minutes then i wiped it all back and then i used a clean wet rag and some clean water to go back and get all of that simple green off of the dresser [Music] next up i used a flathead screwdriver and removed all the hardware from the piece it's really important to keep all your hardware in a safe place it's really easy for it to get lost especially this one had some really small washers on it and i didn't want to lose those so that's just a tip maybe put it in a container with a lid so that you don't lose any of your hardware once i got the hardware off it was time to make some repairs so this drawer was coming apart so i just took a little bit of wood glue and some sandpaper to it the sandpaper was just kind of smoothing out the surface where i was going to be putting in some new glue i put in some wood glue in all the little cracks and crevices and then i used a piece of spare wood that i had lying around to kind of lay flat and have a surface that i could be putting my clamps onto so that's something that i've learned recently is if you just put your clamp on your piece it's going to apply pressure just to that one spot but if you put the clamp on a piece of wood on top of your piece that can help assure that the whole area is getting the same amount of pressure once i got the clamps on and the glue was starting to dry i looked inside the piece found a pair of dirty old socks austin kayla do you want those back and i just cleaned the inside of the dresser the next thing i did was apply citrus strip citrus strip is a chemical stripper that can remove varnishes and stains and paint and things like that so i just used a cheap chip brush and i poured some of the citrus strip onto a paper plate and of course i used gloves and i was wearing a respirator as well and i just tried to apply this evenly in sections then i went over each section that i had completed and i covered the whole area with plastic because i've heard that you don't want to let citrus strip get dry if it gets dry it can harden and then it's really hard to remove i just worked in sections to make sure that i got the whole piece covered in citrus strip and then layered plastic on top of it [Music] by the time i had finished covering the last section in citrus strip the citrus strip had been sitting on the top of the piece for about a half hour so i took a plastic putty knife and i just worked on scraping the citrus strip off this was actually pretty difficult and became kind of a sticky gooey gross mess so i'm not sure exactly what i did wrong i'm wondering if i should have just used more citrus strip and like layered on half an inch of it or if i should have had a wider or bigger putty knife i was a little worried about using a metal scraper or putty knife because i didn't want to damage the wood but i eventually did switch to one so i didn't really enjoy my experience with citrus strip and it also ended up kind of burning through or ruining several pairs of gloves that i had on anyway maybe you have some ideas for me about how to better apply citrus strip so once you're done getting it off of a section you're supposed to take mineral spirits and wipe that area down in mineral spirits so that's supposed to stop the chemical reaction of removing the varnish so i just did that and tried to get off as much of it as i possibly could i kind of felt like i was racing against the clock so luckily for me my friend mackenzie came over and i put her to work and we both worked on getting the rest of the citrus strip off of this dresser at this point i had already gone through three pairs of gloves i wasn't sure if it was the citrus strip or the mineral spirits but each pair of gloves kept getting holes in the fingers and these were brand new gloves so i learned that you actually need special gloves to use with different types of chemicals so i will link down in the description below the gloves i ended up with eventually which are nitrile gloves and those are safe to use with things like mineral spirits so after finishing up with a citrus strip you can see that the top is looking better and there aren't those cut marks or things anymore but there are still some patches that are kind of glossy and have a little bit of that varnish left so that was my first time with citrus strip like i said it was a challenge and i still was going to have to stand i alternated between using my orbital sander and just a power sander and i started out with a 80 grit sandpaper and then i'm worked my way up to higher and higher grit so i started with 80 then i moved to 100 120 eventually up to 180 and then eventually up to 220. so when you're sanding you do need multiple different grits of sandpaper and the lower you are the more it's going to take off so if you're using like a 60 or an 80 grit it's really going to take a lot off of the piece so you just have to be careful this piece had a wood veneer on top of the hardwood and i busted through a tiny bit of the veneer on the sides which i'll show you a little bit later so you just got to be really really careful especially when you're working with a lower grit sandpaper and when you're working with a power sander [Music] i started sanding down the front of the piece and the drawers and then my dad came by and offered to help me out with some of the detail sanding i don't love the detail sanding so i was really grateful to have his help and support getting into the tiny spaces near the keyhole that i couldn't get to with the sanders so what he did was he just took a flathead screwdriver and he wrapped it in sandpaper and just went all around the keyhole right there with different grits of sandpaper thank you dad once i had sanded the whole thing down i gave everything a wipe down with mineral spirits again these were not the right gloves that was the fourth pair of gloves that i burned through but i will learn later on so keep watching but anyway i just gave it all a wipe down with mineral spirits uh that's really good because it kind of just removes the sanding dust and cleans the piece right here you can see on the edge where i had burned through a little bit of the veneer on top down to the wood below it so i was a little bummed about that but it wasn't the end of the world i came back the next day to get into the feet and do a little bit more detail sanding this was really interesting because these hardwood claw feet are very detailed and they were just pretty difficult to sand so i had to come back on a day that i was feeling really really really patient to get this job done it was time to get prepped for staining the piece so i went over everything with a tack cloth and i love these tack cloths they pick up any little extra bits of dust or sanding dust so i've linked those below and then i went through again one more time and wiped the whole thing down with mineral spirits again [Music] to stain it i went ahead and used some red oak stain from minwax and a foam brush [Music] [Music] i did my best to just coat the whole piece with an even layer and then after letting it sit for a few minutes i went back and wiped back any of the excess with a cloth to seal this piece i used polyurethane which is an oil-based finish and it's really important that you do this in a well-ventilated area or wear a respirator i was inside the garage because it was raining but i was wearing a respirator and had one of the doors open so i've also linked down below a respirator and some eye glasses or goggles because you should just have on all the protection when you are working with chemicals and things like this so here are my awesome nitrile gloves that i got that can withstand all the chemicals that i've been using so i'm also going to link those down below because i wish that someone had told me about these way sooner [Music] so i just tried to get an even coat of polyurethane over the whole piece and then i let it dry overnight i ended up coming back the next day and doing one more layer of polyurethane and i did have to do a tiny bit of sanding between the coats while i was waiting for the poly to dry i went ahead and took the hardware home and gave it a good cleaning i filled up a pot with half water and half white vinegar and i boiled all of the hardware for about a half an hour i saw this trick from another youtuber named katie scott who has the channel salvaged by k scott if you like her channel let me know down below i love her videos when i was all done the handles looked awesome but i wanted them to be a different color so they were more of like a copper color so i got some liquid leaf which i will also link down below and i just used a small artist brush to brush this on i think this is the most calming relaxing satisfying part of this whole video so i'm just going to sit back and let you watch and enjoy [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] once i was all done with the hardware i came in to just make any last minute tweaks or fixes i just sanded down that paint that was on the bottom of the inside of the top drawer and then wiped everything down with a wet rag i really really do love these like shop towels they're microfiber cloths which i'll also link then i went through with some orange grove big mama's butter from dixie belle and i just took it and put it inside all of the drawers this helps just bring that wood to life you can see here on the left i've applied it on the right i have not applied it yet so i mean obviously there's a stain but it really just gives some richness to the wood and it also smells really good i then went on the inside of the dresser and put some of that on the tracks as well that just helps the drawers slide in and out a little bit more smoothly the hardware had dried and it was time to reattach it [Music] i'm so glad i caught that face on camera so now i went through and i just put the drawers back in and here is the before again it was already in pretty good shape except for the top and some repairs i needed to make in the drawers yeah the top was pretty gnarly now that i'm looking at it again and here is the after uh i think it looks so good i'm really really pleased with the finish that i got i love the handles i think they really just pop so nicely on the piece and i honestly just could not be happier with how this turned out the only problem is that i have no idea how to price this i am gonna sell it or list it for sale on facebook marketplace and offer up but i do not know what to charge so if you have any ideas i know everyone's town and city is different but if you have any ideas please let me know down in the comments below what do you think this might be worth and what do you think someone might pay for it i'll let you know when i make the sale in the meantime like i said i learned a lot throughout this process and i've linked down below every single product that i use so if you have any questions definitely let me know and check out all the stuff especially the gloves because those were a total lifesaver it feels a little hard to know exactly how much i spent on this project because i had about eighty percent of the materials ahead of time things like a drill and mineral spirits i've already bought those things before so i'm just using them a little bit each time as i go i went through several pairs of gloves and a lot of sandpaper i'm going to estimate that i spend around 40 on this project on materials i didn't calculate how much time i spent on it so i'm just gonna have to do better about that next time but like i said i'm not sure how much to list this for so i really need your help with that please type down in the comments below how much you think i should list this for for sale we'll see i want to thank you so much for being here being a part of this community and for watching make sure to hit subscribe before you go if you haven't already and i will see you at the next flip thanks you

Channel: Know Can Do

Views: 50,101

Keywords: refinishing furniture for beginners, refinishing furniture for begginers, furniture flip, furniture flip beginners, antique dresser makeover, refinishing antique furniture, refinishing furniture tutorial, refinishing furniture, refinishing furniture without stripping, refinishing furniture tips, refinishing furniture with polyurethane finish, refinishing furniture diy, refinishing furniture with veneer, refinishing furniture sandpaper grit, furniture flipping, know can do

Id: jteFSi7MiRo

Length: 20min 26sec (1226 seconds)

Published: Mon May 24 2021