The Pace Family, TV Stand Revival

So I  made an offer to some friends of mine, to refinish some of their furniture for free, so that I could share it with my readers here.  You would think people would be better at following through when someone else is willing to finish their projects for them, for free!  So the Pace family are the first to follow through with providing me with pictures etc.  We started with this sad, dreary, black dresser that they were using as a entertainment center. They picked it up on the local classified for cheap. The problem with it was mostly the color. They were dusting it everyday.  The other problem was with the top.  It's a poor, previously refinished job.

  Someone had clearly tried to finish it before.  Tried being the operative word here.  It wasn't the worst refinish I had ever seen. they actually did a half decent job with this false drawer and the paint was fairly even and nice. However they put a piece of laminate over the laminate to cover some holes a genius drilled in the top.

 A seam? Really? Come on!

 Great original hardware and details though.

 I started prying and pulling and removed the "new" laminate top over the old laminate top.  Oi.

Also, I didn't think the black iron details were the right look to go with the already awesome hardware that came with the dresser. This is what I love about 70's furniture.  Such great details!  Unfortunately, everything was made out of crap particle board.  So this dressers gonna need a new top, unless the paces like this "been hanging out in the dumpster" look.

I've been playing around with some fun ideas for it, besides just putting a new piece of wood on there... leather.  Tile. Felt.  I think the porous materials are out since I want this to be a maintenance free piece for the family.

  I didn't get permission but I did it anyway. I removed the nice false drawer that had been put on it. You can see the old drawer tracks behind where the false drawer was.  This is what I have in mind.  Besides, the whole point of a TV cabinet is storage right? Why waste any bit of space?  Also, some baskets would look nice there.

 I had to pull out SO many nails...

   Please remember when refinishing your own furniture to remove the hardware. Please. For the love of monkeys, please do this.

  I got really tired because it took me forever to pull out all of the nails the previous "re-finisher" had banged all over in this thing. So we will finish this up another time. SOON.  So, this is how it sits for now. A trash heap on the floor of my garage... Soon to be treasure.