I have no idea what people do to their furniture in order to get it to look like this! On the very bottom scalloped molding on the left side, you can see where a piece is missing. I had to glue this piece (at least they saved it) on so it would match the right side. See the 5th picture for the result.
In the below picture, you can see how it all looks after stripping off the whole mess! The wood was on some sort of plastic or resin underlayment. Very weird. I've never seen anything like it. The top and drawer fronts are walnut and the rest is made of pine. Very light piece. Only the parts that were to be stained got an entire stripping. The pine part was sanded only until everything felt smooth to the touch. It all got sprayed with a shellac. It also got a coat of red primer to help the black paint look better. When you apply your paint directly onto the wood without primer, it can look splotchy and rough. You must have a base coat primer before applying your paint. I used the red primer because I used black paint.
Quite a diff, eh??
I used General Finishes Spiced Walnut stain and semi gloss wipe on Arm r Seal for top coat.
The black is GF Lampblack Milk Paint.
The handles got sprayed in a soft gold.
I actually used a small artists' paint brush to do the small round molding on the edging and some of