Simple refinish on this little end table

[bradleyheathhays]

Hey folks. My neighbor wants me to fix her table so the drawer doesn't droop out when it's pulled open, and after seeing it I asked if she wanted it refinshed as well and she said sure go for it.

Now compared to most around here, I pretty much just nail 2x4s together, so I could use some advice on how to do this refinsh. I'd like to keep it as simple as possible, so I'm envisioning sanding I guess up to 220? then laying on a few coats of something from a spray can. The scratches in the pics aren't too awfully deep.

Any thoughts on how to easily go about this?

 

[GaryMGg]

Refinishing is an art.
Your first step is to figure out what it's currently finished with.
Second step is to know what wood(s) its built from.
To get to step one, read Flexner's book on Finishing <- so, step 0.

IMO, refinishing is harder than finishing.
It's typically more work and takes more skill than finishing.

 

[jocat54]

Looks like a lot of sanding--I think the hardest part would making that chipped corner look good. Paint would make it much easier to repair--but I don't like the look of paint on a furniture piece.

 

[monophoto]

Check out Tom Johnson's YouTube series on furniture restoration.

 

[bradleyheathhays]

Thanks for the advice guys. As usual, my thoughts are bigger than my will, and I may have bitten off more than have time to deal with here. Whatever the material is under that worn corner doesn't look like wood fiber to me, so I'd better assume I'm working with a veneer, which means I basically don't want to sand it at all now. The owner isn't picky and this table doesn't have any special meaning so a less-than-stellar outcome is entirely acceptable.

I have this 60s credenza kind of piece that had a few scratches on it when I got it. It was good enough to use as is, but after it had a bit of simple water damage to the finish while in storage I decided to help it out a little. I just found this can of restorer I used on it. Simply cleaned it off and wiped it on, and it turned out great honestly. All the scratches disappeared, as well as the area affected by the water.

What is it?...mayonaise that takes out water stains? Now I'm thinking I might better just treat the water stain (if possible) and lay on a coat of this stuff and see how it looks. Any thoughts?... Wonder if it'll unnaturally darken that worn corner?

 

[monophoto]

Wife inherited one of those antique 'secretaries' - a home furniture item that was intended to serve as a desk back the days when your home office contained only a checkbook and a bottle of fountain pen ink. She keeps it in the family room. It was looking a bit sad, but I didn't want to do a complete refinish.

Instead, I used Howard's Restore-a-Finish to clean off the surface, and then applied wax polish (Howard's Feed-n-Wax). In both cases I used a 4/0 steel wool pad as an applicator. It looks better - and the important thing is that wife was happy with the result.