Painting pine furniture - sand and paint?

scottishminnie

I have a couple of pine chests of drawers which have served their purpose well but now are surplus to requirements. I've been thinking if I could paint them white and give the drawers swish new handles I could re-use them in my en suite. Can I simply paint over them or do I need to sand them first?
They are very solid wood but are quite shiny (I guess they also have 19 years worth of furniture polish on them which will have added to the shine!)

It seems a complete waste to get rid of them when I could re-use them but I haven't painted anything much since I went mad with stencils in every room in my first house (it was the late 80's - that's my excuse) so would appreciate some advice.

Thanks

TomsMom

scottishminnie wrote: »

Can I simply paint over them or do I need to sand them first?
They are very solid wood but are quite shiny (I guess they also have 19 years worth of furniture polish on them which will have added to the shine!)

Wax, silicone, whatever type of polish has been used will need to be removed first for any paint to stick so yes they will need sanding to give the paint a key. There was probably some kind of varnish on them originally. We had some pine bedroom furniture that was probably the same sort of age and they had varnish on them, I never polished them in all the years I had them as they were always shiny anyway!