Marketplace dresser was ruined by paint can I save It

Hello everyone and welcome back to another video. Today we have another mid-century nine drawer dresser with two doors and as you can see it has obviously been painted in a really weird green chalk paint and I am hoping that there is some salvageable walnut underneath this dresser so that we can save it and bring it back to its former glory. So please tune in and let's see what we can do with this project. Every project pretty much starts out the same. I like to dismantle it, take it apart, remove all of the hardware, doors, drawers, and anything that I can remove so that way I can assess the damage and to determine what type of shape this is going to be in and what kind of project I have ahead of me. One of the first things that I wanted to do was start stripping some of this paint off so that way I can see if they painted it because there was damage behind all of that paint or if the veneer was salvageable so that way I can do a full restoration and this is the most nerve-wracking part of the project because it's going to determine the trajectory of the project and I was hoping that I wasn't going to have to paint this and that I can restore it. Unfortunately I couldn't remove the handle because it was glued and nailed down so I had to use some acetone and a wire scraper to get the paint out of all of those cracks and sand right up to the handle. I wish that it did have a couple of set screws so that way I could remove it making sanding a lot easier but that's not the case. So just a little background on this dresser, I did find it on face marketplace. Somebody was selling it for $50 and I thought that that was a steal. They were moving out of the country and couldn't take it with them obviously so I immediately went to go and pick it up and everything went smoothly, brought it home and started working on it right away. Another thing I like to check in mid-century dressers is the top to see whether it's actual wood veneer or formica and unfortunately this project has a formica top so that means that I will have to purchase some pill and stick veneer so that way I can cover it up and get the top to match the rest of the body. Full restorations can be very tedious because there is a lot of sanding and a lot of times when it comes to sanding the face frame you will find a lot of wood that isn't the same color as all of the veneer so some of the face frames I like to do is use walnut edge banding just so that I can get a nice cohesive color and if anything is removable like I said I like to remove it so that way it makes my life a lot easier. While removing the base I was debating whether I build a new one for it because I kind of wanted to just go with a little bit more of a mid-century hairpin style legs or tapered legs but after looking at it for a little bit and knowing that I had to put money into the veneer to replace that formica I decided to just keep the base sand it and stain match it to the rest of the dresser just so that I can save money on the back end. While I have a second I'd like to thank everybody for watching all of my videos I really appreciate it I've been getting an influx of new subscribers that have been praising my work in the comments and I'd like to thank you all as well. I do notice that a lot of people like to watch restoration videos rather than paint videos but I will have also a mix of the paint and restoration videos just depends on the piece of furniture that I'm working on. Now I would usually leave the base off and just sand it and stain it separately from the dresser but because I want to stain match it I attach it back to the dresser so that way when I stain it I can see how different the base color is going to be from the dresser. I'm using a countersink drill to add some extra support to these legs because they did seem to be a little wobbly even after I tightened them all the way down so this is just a little more reassurance to make sure that this thing is going to last and stand the test of time. So this is where I started to realize that I was dealing with formica so before I attach the new veneer I want to get all of the paint off because I really want a nice solid surface for that double-sided veneer to stick to and trying to put it over that paint just was not going to work. I typically also like to remove the formica but it is a lot of work and I was afraid of damaging the top because it was made of some sort of press board so I decided to veneer straight over it. As an extra step just so I don't take any chances of ruining the new veneer I'm using some acetone to wipe the top down just so I can get all of the dust and all of the paint off of the top. I don't want to risk ruining the new veneer that I'm putting on because it is really expensive. When you're trying to fully restore a piece veneering the top is going to bring a lot more value to the piece because people don't tend to like the miscoloration of the formica top and I also end up with a lot of scrap pieces that I can do repairs in the future or also use that veneer to just cover other pieces of wood that are cheaper, non-walnut on other projects so I really like that aspect of it as well. One thing I have to warn you about using this roller when you're putting the new veneer on is that when you have overlaps it's hard to tell where the edge actually ends and you don't want to go too far over the edge because then you will bend the veneer over that and it could potentially leave a deep crack past the edge that you would like so then you would have to end up repairing it anyway so just be careful with the roller it can be a little unforgiving. In order to get all of the leftover paint inside of all the cracks and grooves I'm using more acetone and a scraper. You want to kind of be careful with the scraper because you don't want to scrub too hard it tends to leave a lot of deep scratches in the veneer and you'll have to try to sand them out so just be very light with it take your time and acetone really does make a big difference. Lately rather than using the typical wood filler that I usually use I've been opting for this Bondo 2 part because it dries a lot harder a lot faster and it's very sandable and it's meant for wood repairs. If you use the standard wood filler it is water-based so you got to watch out when wiping it down with a damp cloth it will just remove it right out of the area that you're trying to repair and another thing what I'm doing right here is I'm removing all of those trim pieces out I tried to be very careful because I wanted to reuse them but they seem to just kind of break apart so I figured I would just rip them out so that way I can sand the doors down really easy and later on in the video I am going to be using actual walnut and I'm going to be cutting some new inlays for that which I thought was actually going to be really cool because that other wood was cheaper and it was a lot lighter than walnut so I would have to stain match that as well. It's actually pretty funny because this is the last bit of walnut that I have. I bought one piece from Home Depot a while back maybe six to eight months ago and it has lasted me through a ton of projects and I just could not see throwing little pieces away because they always can find a use in my shop and right here this is the last bit of this piece and I will have to go and get another piece just in case I need more walnut. I tried using my miter saw to cut these small pieces with 45 degree angles but because the pieces were so small the freaking miter saw was just tearing them apart so I had to opt for a smaller little pole saw and the pieces are small enough that it would cut right through it. I'm pretty happy that the original trim pieces fell apart because after inlaying this walnut I felt that it matched way better. It just feels more premium because I'm using actual walnut hardwood rather than a cheaper piece of wood that doesn't match and I couldn't be happier with it. Like I said earlier in the video I edge band most of the front face because they usually just try to use like a toner or a gel stain or something to kind of stain match to the rest of the dresser and I feel like this just elevates it that little bit more and I think that attention to detail really does reflect workmanship and the customers really appreciate it. Now that a bulk of all of the sanding is done I can start to reassemble this dresser so that way I can start applying stain and after applying the stain is where I'm going to see where I have to do a lot of blending and a lot of repairs to stain match and that is the biggest part of getting this thing to look perfect is making all of those repairs. This may be an unpopular opinion but I really do love adding back those red tones it just to me feels a lot more rich and just brings out that walnut color a lot better. Some people do say that they like a darker walnut with no red tones but I just I can't get away from it and it's one of my favorite colors that I've been using for a long time. If you've ever thought about getting into furniture restoration or flipping projects in general it could be a little intimidating at first and that's how I felt when I first started but over time you build your skills and things become a lot easier and you do tend to see a vision when you first see a piece and although restoring back to original takes a lot more time and a lot more patience I think that it brings more value and respect to the original piece and I'm trying to bring back a lot of pieces that otherwise would have been thrown into the trash. Adding dye to my topcoat is pretty much mandatory at this point I do it on every one of my projects ever since discovering it it does add a little bit of extra warmth and it acts as a toner making everything cohesive throughout and it's just that little bit of a subtle change you don't really notice it but it does definitely make a big difference. I don't record every step of the topcoat process because it's just a repeat of the same steps you see in my video. I apply the top coat let it dry do a scuff sand a 400 grit sandpaper in between each coat but before I do all my blending with my blend all sticks I do the first coat of top coat so that way all of my repairs sit on that first layer rather than in the wood. Once I'm done making all my repairs I lock everything in with two more coats of the water-based polyurethane satin finish I find that the satin finish gives it just enough sheen without making it too glossy and you want to do at least two coats because you don't want there to be an instance where some damage happens and those repairs get rubbed off very easily and it will make the piece look like it needs to be touched up again. The last thing left to do is clean up all of the hardware and get all of the paint removed from all of the hinges and the handle so I use some acetone to soak everything in and use a wire brush to remove everything and once I do get around to removing all of the paint and everything I notice that they're not brass or anything like that so I am going to be spraying those with a metallic gold spray paint that I like to use on hardware the stuff is really durable and the hardware is really not in an area where it's going to scrape or rub off. At this point I'm sure everybody already knows that this is my favorite part of any project because that means that all of the hard work is done I get to put it back together take a step back and see what all of my hard work has turned out to be and I cannot wait to finally put all of the drawers in and be done with this one. The last thing I like to do is use some paraffin wax to wax all of the drawer slides and all of the undersides of the drawers just so that way everything slides nice and smooth and you want to make sure that you put every drawer back into its respective slot. Now let's take a step back and look at how this piece looked before and how it's going to look now. I'd say that this was a job well done another piece saved and restored and back to its respective original look I couldn't be happier. At the end of every video I like to go over all of the numbers I did pay $50 for this dresser I paid $150 for some veneer and I sold it for $850 netting me a profit of $650. I do have consumables I don't really count those as much because I like to buy it in bulk and it usually lasts me a lot but if I had to say that would be another $50 so realistically about $600 in profit. Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end of this video and I cannot wait to see you in my next project.