Repainting varnished wood cabinet

A

ado54

Guest
Just wondering has anyone ever attempted to repaint varnished wooden furniture. I have just recently moved into a new apartment and am looking to get nice furniture with as little cost as possilble. A member of the family has kindly donated a wooden chest of drawers but they're in dark varnished pine(or similar) and I wish to repaint cream/off-white.
What will I need to do and will it be worth the effort?
Thanks for your help!
 
I've done exactly the opposite with a 100 year old pine chest of drawers. It was (badly) painted and had a small woodworm infestation, but was handmade (by my great grandfather) and featured hand cut (obviously!) dovetails and some nice moulding details. I stripped back the piece to bare wood, applied a very light stain before giving the piece two coats of shellac sanding sealer. I then applied several coats of briwax beeswax polish, polishing and burnishing between coats.
 
Have done - need to sand before hand to provide a suitable surface and use an undercoat - get better results. I've also stripped paint from furniture - can look wonderful but its very labourious and would only bother now if you want a stripped natural finish. I ended up doing such a bad job on stipping a fire surround - I gave up and painted it after filling the gorges!
 
Ok thanks all. Sounds like it might be a harder job than I thought.
Considering furniture isn't worth a whole lot it might not be worth the headache.
 
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