Striped MCM Dresser

I’ve been very fortunate to be one of the only furniture “people” in San Antonio that can take on Mid Century Modern style furniture. It’s not very big here, in fact the buyers for these pieces seem to be somewhere between college students and bachelors, to the occasional the retro lover. And that’s why these pieces are so hard to find in this area. For those reasons alone, the purchase of this kind of furniture here would seem like a bad investment, but it’s so worth it for the people that love it.

For those that have some experience with furniture painting/restoration, it’s easy to see how matte and distressed finishes will sell quickly. Everyone loves a good “aged” piece. The glossy, sleek, simplicity of MCM furniture can be intimidating, especially if the pieces are formica or veneer. There’s no distressing MCM to cover up your mistakes!

This is the before photo of the piece I picked up from another furniture painter. Based on this photo alone, I could tell one of the legs needed work, missing and chipped veneer needed filling and this whole thing needed a good sanding. I thought this piece was solid wood, until I picked it up.

Turns out that the drawers were veneer, while the body was formica. The crooked leg was so warped, I knew this dresser would have to be legless. This one sat in my garage until I figured out exactly what the plan was going to be. I mean…mid century furniture is definitely known for it’s legs, so what’s a MCM dresser without it’s legs???

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Fortunately for me, my husband made a dumb joke that ended up turning on a lightbulb for me! It kinda went something like this:

Jake: What are we doing with that thing? I’m ’bout to saw it in half.

Me: I don’t know…the legs are broken and I don’t know what to do about fixing them.

Jake: Broken legs? What do you do with broken legs? Put them in a wheel chair? *laughs at himself*

Me: *gives him an annoyed look and I turn around wide-eyed thinking “how in the hell did he just solve this damn problem with a dumb joke?”

Me: *turns around hiding the smile on my face making it seem like it’s my idea; “we could just take the legs off and put casters on.

I guess it ended up being a productive conversation. I can’t remember the exact size of caster’s we got, but they came in a 4-pack. We took the legs off, cut blocks of wood to the caster size and screwed them to the bottom of the dresser to give the wheels a platform to be screwed into. It wasn’t a half bad idea!

I primed the dresser using my Critter Spray Gun and compressor. I planned on painting this a bright white, so I did four coats of Zinsser Shellac Primer and sanded with 220 grit in-between coats. After a day of letting the primer dry, I sprayed two coats of Sherwin Williams “Extra White.” After the paint dried, I sprayed six coats of Minwax Spray Lacquer in Gloss and light sanded in between with 320 grit. Although the sheen is not as glossy as I would have liked, the spray made for a convenient top coat and allowed me to play with a new product.

The drawers were stripped, filled, and sanded. They took a few coats of General Finishes Antique Walnut Gel Stain and were also sealed with gloss lacquer. The stripe on the top drawer was just a sample of oops paint I got at Home Depot. Just a little something to kick it up a notch.