Furniture makeover - How to start 2

Your first piece candidate for makeover

Space make over and furniture refurbishing is  my favourite hoby. And it is not such demanding as it could look like on the first site. But hot to start? Every beginning is rather difficult and could be confusing. But don't give up even before you actually start! It is always necessary to gain experience. So, start with something rather simple and small - wooden box, small shelf, simple chair, picture frame, ... If you are not happy with the result, you can always repaint it. I think everybody has such experience. When you see astonished refurbished pieces, remember that people who did it also had some failures experimenting with new techniques.
If you decided to work on a larger piece or having dilemma to take some item on a flee market or garage sale, look first at the basic piece skeleton - if it is in  good condition. Than think over do you have enough experience, tools and available help/assistance to makeover the piece. It is sometimes better to take one step at the time.

When I started to work on  furniture, I made a whole plan for that piece, bought a paint and other material before I actually begin to work. But than I realized that it is better to be patient and first do the surface preparations - meaning cleaning,  dismantling,  sanding,   repairing damages. Only after this initial effort I can see and feel  the wood - could I use stain or is the paint better, is it better to replace some parts or elements or to use it in some other way, how to decorate. And rather often I completely change the initial idea. Admit, sometimes just because sanding over all current layers is too challenging, sometimes I got a quite a new idea. This is how it works for me, everybody has to find its own way.