Master Furniture – Before & After

Jan 19, 2011 by Lindsay

I finally finished re-staining our master bedroom furniture! Wahoo!!!

Let me recap for you. Spencer and I got married 4 1/2 years ago. A very sweet couple from our church was getting ready to move and no longer wanted their bedroom furniture. They offered it to us for FREE and we accepted.

Then this past September we buy a new house and I get so excited to re-do our master bedroom including buying new bedroom furniture. After browsing online and looking at the price of a king bedroom set I realize that there is no way we are buying brand new furniture! Then I stumble across THIS blog post from my favorite decorator blog and I think, “Hey! I can do this!”

So, here you have it….BEFORE

And….AFTER

I followed Centsational Girl’s instructions exactly, but I will give you an abbreviated re-cap of the process anyways.

• First I removed all hardware, the doors and hinges, handles and the decorative panels from the doors.

• I then sanded (some by hand, some with a rotary sander) all surfaces. I did not sand down to the raw wood, it wasn’t neccessary.

• Then I primed the surface using Minwax Wood Conditioner.

• I then applied two coats of Minwax Gel Stain in Walnut. (Waiting 24 hours in between each coat.)

• After the last coat of stain was completely dry I applied two coats of Minwax Wipe on Polyurethane, waiting a few hours in between each coat.

• Since my decorative panels weren’t wood I couldn’t stain them so I spray painted them with a color that was as close a match as I could find.

• I re-attached the doors using the original hinges and new knobs and pulls.

I refinished our nightstand, the dresser pictured and a huge armoire. Total I spent under $100. The new knobs and pulls were most of that because I needed so many. One can of the gel stain covered all three pieces with two coats each with none left over, but the wood conditioner and poly will last me for many more projects. This project really was easy, just a little time consuming! I recommend it to anyone wanting to give their old furniture a facelift!