Mid-century Modern Dresser Makeover

A few years ago I came across one of the most beautiful pieces of well-made furniture I have ever owned. It was a mid-century modern dresser made by Bassett furniture company in the late 50’s. Real wood, dovetail drawers, center slides, and clean lines. It helped me realize what quality furniture looks like. I spent a few weeks refinishing the mid-century dresser to white and have loved having it my home since. 

The original, see the makeover here.

While in a thrift store on Labor Day last year, I spotted a cute little dresser with clean lines that looked like it had potential. Upon further inspection, I realized it was a piece similar to the other one with all the marks of quality craftsmanship you would hope for. It was even the same brand, Bassett. I looked at the price tag and knew I had to get it now: it was on sale for only $20!

The only downside is that whoever previously owned the dresser had–rather violently–removed the tapered legs that are a signature of the mid-century time period. I liked the simplistic look of the dresser without the legs, but the leg removal had broken the wood in the back bottom and it needed repair.

In this picture it is up on cement blocks to prepare it for sanding. When I actually made the repair, I flipped the dresser upside down on a blanket and installed a new 2″ x 2″ piece of wood to support across the bottom back using my Kreg Jig tool.

Besides the repair, this dresser also had a sizable scratch across one of the front drawer faces. It was not deep enough to use wood filler for, so I decided to try out a homemade chalk paint recipe that uses plaster. I hoped the plaster would fill in the scratch more than regular paint and the chalky finish would hide imperfections better than a glossy finish.

The first thing I did was sand down the whole piece. I love white furniture and wanted this piece to look very modern, so I planned to paint it. However, just painting the whole piece white would have been boring. I hatched a plan to add some gold detailing since this dresser had no metallic hardware.

My painting process is more old-fashioned. I do not skip steps like priming because I really want my paint job to hold up and last. Read the step by step process to painting furniture here. The only difference this time is that I wanted the spaces between the drawers to be spray-painted metallic gold. So after rolling on 3 coats of my homemade chalk paint, I taped and covered the piece for overspray and used Rust-Oleum gold spray paint on it.

You can see all the steps and process I went through in this time-lapse video.

The recipe for homemade chalk paint is in the video, but here it is in case you missed it:
2 Cups Paint (any water-based kind will do, I’m using semi-gloss interior latex wall paint)
1 Tbsp Water
4 Tbsp Plaster of Paris

I got this recipe from livelovediy.com, one of my favorite blogs. Mixing your own is WAY cheaper than the $30 pint of chalk paint you can buy at craft stores. Just remember that if you are using colored paint, the plaster will change the color to be slightly more pastel.

Mid-century Modern Dresser Makeover

Here are the finished project photographs for you to pin and share!

So fresh and clean. I think this mid-century modern dresser now looks like a higher-end version of IKEA.

As someone who has refinished and painted a LOT of furniture, I appreciate the gold detailing. It adds interest to the piece and gives it a little bit of shine juxtaposed the chalky finish.

As you might have seen in the video, I also tried a wax on this piece — something I’ve never done before. Although I do prefer polycrylic as a protective top-coat, I didn’t want a glossy finish on the white paint so wax was the choice. I liked the luster wax provided and how easy it was to apply. If you want to try wax on your furniture makeover, get it here.

The before and after is so fun to see the difference!

That’s all for today! Be sure to pin these images or the video makeover (did you know you could pin video!?) if you enjoyed how this beautiful piece of furniture turned out. Thanks for reading about my Mid-century modern dresser makeover!
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