It’s Jess Howe, your friendly neighborhood Furniture lady!

Welcome to my first EVER blog post and… I’m slightly nervous. I have always been so reluctant to fall in to the ‘DIY How To ____’ for many reasons. One being that, frankly, they can be a little bland. I love to write but I am not fond of typing out some surgical ‘If you have ___, then do ___.’ Not only this, but honestly a lot of what I know is self-taught when it comes to furniture fixin’. The way that I create the things that I create isn’t always ‘by the book.’ Every project is its own journey. Sometimes I use techniques that I’ve learned from years of work, and sometimes mid project I think to myself and say “Why don’t I try out something a little weird?” Maybe we won’t call this a ‘How to.’ Maybe this is just a ‘Jess Howe’ Jess does what she does. Get it? Because my last name is Howe? No?

ANY WHO, I’m going to take you guys along the journey of refinishing this Mid Century Bar Cabinet that came into my hands recently. This baby is ROUGH but you can tell once upon a time she was loved. So, this furniture lady is going to work some magic and see what comes out of it!

Step 1: Make a plan, Stan! Or if you’re going to wing it at least plan to wing it.

Refinishing furniture as an actual job is pretty different than just simply saving your own personal pieces. In my case, it’s not as if I’m refinishing this piece for a specific room. I have no idea who will buy this, or what the buyer’s style will be (unless it’s a custom project, duh). After years in the refinishing game, I can definitively say I have three different methods of planning and designing projects.

1. I know going into the project exactly what I want the outcome to be and I stick to the plan.

2. I THINK I know going into it exactly what I want the outcome to be and along the way I come up with a better idea.

3. I have no solid idea of what I want to do so I let the furniture tell me what it would like to be.

Step 2: Take it off, baby.

Let’s put it simply — Sometimes the more you can take off of your project the easier it is to do a decent job at refinishing. With no solid plan in place, I at least know I’ll have to uncover a majority of the cabinet before I get a good feel of what I want the outcome to be. Taking off certain pieces like doors, legs, and even the top is much easier in smaller pieces. So for this project, we’re taking it all off!

And guess who found their first little surprise along the way already?! Well I mean obviously me since I’m the one writing this…

While taking off the doorknobs I noticed there was more weight to them than expected. Since they were covered in black paint, I assumed they were wood. BUT once taking them off, I was able to see that these babies were actually brass covered in layers of paint! THIS is why I love having no plan, ladies and gentleman! Once these brass beauties are uncovered, I’ll let the make the rules of where we’re going with this project.

Step 3: I said take it all off!

Time to strip! I, like many others, am not a fan of paint stripper. The mess, UGH. The chemical smell, BLEH. And really it can be SO aggravating if it doesn’t remove enough of the finish on the first go around. All of this said, for a project like this, paint stripper is a better option rather than clogging up 500 pieces of sandpaper trying to remove multiple layers of paint.

To figure out just how much paint I would need to remove, I did a test sanding on a small corner of the top surface of the bar cabinet. Once I did this, I found not one, not two, but THREE different paint jobs. So physically sanding all those off? Hard pass. Luckily there are modern paint strippers that aren’t quite as miserable to use. Citristrip is my go-to for easy to use stripping gels and its chemical smell isn’t half as ‘bleh’ as traditional strippers.

And cue SURPRISE NUMBER TWO! Hidden under decades of paint, I was able to find some branding on the back of the cabinet. After removing the paint with the stripping gel, I saw that this cabinet was made by Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation. How freakin’ cool, right?

On an old piece like this cabinet, this little identification isn’t just a fun fact. A small dive into some research and finally I can know what this guy used to look like in his prime time. A naked, natural, maple veneer covered BABE. After finding out that this cabinet used to be as bare as lady’s tuchus on a hot summer day, how in the world could I cover it back up with more paint? I CANNOT is the answer. I CANNOT. Now I can choose our finish choice!

To completely prep this cabinet for a natural wood look, I’ll have to do a second coat of stripping gel and some sanding to get it perfectly bare. Even though I want to mostly restore the piece to its original state, I still want to have a little fun with it. There is no way that the interior will be able to come back to its natural state. The MDF board under the veneer is already visible in spots from the decades of many refinishings. So, a simple light sanding to rough up the glossy finish will prep the interior enough for some primer and the perfect pop of color!

Step 4: Fix past mistakes

Bar cabinets are a great little way to truly honor one of our favorite past times, drinking booze. But, they can be a little difficult with teenagers around. If you don’t have a way to lock it, I think we all know that your vodka will soon become a 50/50 mix of water and vodka. Clearly a previous owner was familiar with this scenario and having lost the key to the original lock on the cabinet they must have thought, “screw it, I’m just gonna add another!”

And guess who has neither of those keys now?! This chick! Yes, I am incredibly nitpicky so this has been driving me crazy. At the very least, I’ll bring this guy back to its original state by filling up the secondary lock hole with some wood chunks, glue, and then wood filler.

I know, I know. “But Jess, people might still need to lock this! What are you gonna do?” There’s an awesome modern fix to these little issues that don’t involve large holes in vintage furniture — which inevitably a crazy lady like me would need to repair. My answer: Safety 1st Magnetic Locks! (I keep them on hand to add to projects if needed). But for the sake of simplicity, I won’t be adding that to the project until I know if the person buying it wants one. Young hipsters don’t have these issues so let’s not add baby locks to their vintage furniture, right?

Step 5: Make furniture art

Before we go full throttle, I want to do some stain and color testing to make sure I don’t get too ahead of myself and end up hating the way the stain and color look together. This mint blue green? With that medium stain on that maple? I AM DROOLING. Now, commence full throttle paint ‘til you drop mode. GO!

Painting and staining are pretty straight forward, right? Three to four light coats and boom, you’re done! But sometimes, there are little parts and pieces you have to get pretty artsy with to make sure your latest restoration doesn’t look like you fixed it up in a dark closet.

The lock fill that I did stood out like a sore thumb with the first coat of stain. It looked like a dark dramatic circle that if you stared at it too long it may or may not just suck the soul right out of you (possible overstatement). After applying another coat of wood filler in a more organic form, it helped the repair blend into the wood grain around it. For some extra blending, I even lightly applied a darker stain to certain parts of the wood filler. Now unless you’re looking for it, you’ll never notice!

Next are those poor brass knobs that were covered in layers of paint. Stripping them down was a little rough on the metal — they began to look a little more sad than characteristically rustic. I did love some of the characteristic wear. So to simply clean it up a bit, I added a very light coat of gold paint and then a coat of antiquing glaze. The combination of the two cleaned up the knobs without making them look brand spankin’ new.

Step 6: Put humpty dumpty back together

What have we learned on this step today, girls and boys? No matter how long you’ve been doing something you’re still going to make dumb mistakes. But hey sometimes mistakes are happy accidents. I mean we say that about children so why can’t we say it about refinishing furniture too?

The original plan was to stain the exterior and then paint the interior, including the doors and even the inside of the top that flips up. But Jess did a slightly dumb thing…

Once I had reattached the top, I noticed something wasn’t matching up quite right. Why would that be? Well because I was trying to attach the top upside down. Along the process, I completely forgot which side was supposed to be facing upwards and without realizing I stained the wrong side. Let’s just thank the furniture gods that I decided it would be easier to paint those pieces after I reattached them to cabinet. Can you imagine if I painted the other side before reattaching and then realized? I would have had to sand it ALL. OVER. AGAIN. Yes, I would have cried the entire time sanding my lovely paint back off.

Luckily, this really was a happy accident. After attaching the top the correct way, I thought to myself “now what? Do I just stick to the plan and paint over the stain on the inside?” But the grain of the wood on the interior of the top was stupid gorgeous after staining it so, SCREW IT. Let’s leave it stained! I did say we were gonna wing it, remember?

With the final decision made it’s time to power through, and paint those doors!

Step 7: Clear coat for 500 days

At this point in the project, I’m either barely holding on or I’m so ridiculously excited about finishing that I just don’t stop working. Hair gets real frizzy from forgetting to shower, work pants go unwashed for the remaining days, etc. I’m basically running around heavily caffeinated looking like I misplace.

For me, clear coating is a project in and of itself. Sometimes I’ll spend weeks on just trying to get the perfect finish. Over the years, I’ve learned the key is a ton of light coats instead of a few normal coats. This prevents the clear coat from beading up on the edges, dripping, and it makes it easier to have a consistent smooth surface. But yes it is so much more work. I don’t even count how many clear coats I do anymore, honestly. Four? Six? Eight? My grandma never used to measure or time anything when she cooked. Let’s just say I have the same method with clear coats. I don’t know how much I add or for how long but, I’ll know when it’s done!

So anywhere from four to eighteen clear coats later, It’s finally time to reveal this revived babe to the world!