Unpopular opinion: Vintage furniture restoration is way overhyped on here

I picked up a 1960s dresser at a flea market in Portland last month for $40, sanded and refinished it over two weekends, and honestly it looks worse than a $150 IKEA piece. The wood was lower quality than I expected and the original glue joints were failing no matter what I did. Anyone else try restoring old stuff only to wish you'd just bought new?

2 comments

2 Comments

umaanderson4d ago

Rode that same train last year with a mid-century side table. Ended up sanding through the veneer on the top edge cause it was thinner than paper. Sealed it all up nice but you can still see the damage if the light hits it right. People act like restoring old furniture is some kind of magic trick but half the time you're just fighting cheap construction from back then. Sometimes old stuff was just old junk, not hidden treasure.

harper_owens4d ago

Gotta disagree a little bit though. A lot of that mid-century stuff was solid wood underneath the veneer, but the veneer itself was often paper thin because they wanted to save money. The real junk from back then was the particle board stuff that came later, not the older pieces with actual wood cores. Were you sanding by hand or using a power sander?