Ryan Fightmaster, MD

Writer. Furniture professional. Former practicing physician.

My goal is to feasibly restore every piece of furniture I work on to its original condition. That is, barring the amount of time required. Given the degree of damage to the original finish, including the nature of the original finish’s glaze, I opted to paint portions of the piece to save myself days of work. Still, I wanted to preserve the drawers because the underlying woodgrain was beautiful.

I used a chemical stripper to remove the lacquer from the drawers. I then sealed, toned, and lacquered them with Mohawk’s Medium Walnut Ultra Classic Toner, following by the Pre-Cat Lacquer in Gloss. I painted the drawer pulls in metallic gold.

Sanding the nightstands and dressers was tedious. If I didn’t ensure a consistent surface, the paint would adhere unevenly and the surface would appear like patchwork. After it was sanded and the blemishes were removed, I sprayed the piece top to bottom with Aweigh from Sherwin Williams in their Emerald line in semi-gloss.

One week later, the set sold for $895.