How to Make Old Furniture Look Modern in the 5 Easiest Ways

Do you have an old piece of furniture that you would like to modernize? But you don’t feel like you know how to modernize furniture. This simple tutorial will take you through 5 of the easiest ways to update your old furniture into a beautiful new piece.

Today I am going to show you how to modernize furniture and turn this dresser into a modern beauty! Most of my old furniture stories start out on a curb somewhere. And today’s story is not unique. I found this old dresser sitting on the curb of my neighbor’s house several years ago.

The piece was actually an old hutch. But since I had re-done several hutches at around the same time I didn’t pay this one any attention at first. But by the 5th or 6th time driving by, my interest grew.

I realized that the top and the bottom of the hutch were seperable. And since the hutch had been sitting on the curb for several days with no buyers in sight, I figured I would do a landfill a favor. I started to think even if I didn’t use it I could probably re-purpose it for someone else’s benefit.

So I called my husband about the potential of picking up a straggling hutch on the side of the road. Said a quick prayer that if it was meant to be it would still be there that afternoon. And sure enough it was added to our garage that afternoon.

At first glance this piece was outdated and had that typical orangish wood with the standard 1990’s knobs and handles. So my plan was definitley to modernize the piece and bring it back to life.

How do you modernize old wood furniture?

In order to modernize a piece of furniture you have to consider what is making a piece look outdated. There are 5 different things I look at when modernizing furniture.

1. Update the paint or stain of a piece

The first way to modernize furitnure is to change the body of the furniture. Choosing to paint or stain the furntiure in colors that are on trend colors always dramatically revitalizes old furniture. My piece was an orangish wood so I choose to paint over the wood in a gray chalk paint.

2. Change or straighten the bottom edging

Another thing that can really date a piece of furniture is the edging. If scalloped or wavy edges were really popular in a certain time period it seems the piece will continue to speak of that era even when the paint or stain is altered. So consider cutting off outdated edging or other features.

This piece of furniture had a wavy bottom edge and it was stronly reminiscent of the era it was built. We dediced to straighten the edge. We drew a straight line and my husband used the circular saw to cut a straight edge.

3. Add Modern Hardware to your furniture

The third way to modernize old furniture is probably one of the easiest ways. Change old knobs and pulls for more modern knobs and pulls. You can fill in the holes with wood filler, allow it to dry, sand. And then drill new holes where you want your new knobs and pulls.

4. Add legs to your furniture piece

Adding legs to your furniture piece can add a whole new dimension. If you have a flat bottom on your furniture. Consider adding legs to modernize your piece of furniture. And it works in both directions if your legs date your piece you can also considering taking the legs off your furniture.

This piece already had legs but we trimmed the curves on the legs with a circular saw. We considered adding new legs on the piece but we liked how they looked after they were trimmed.

5. Add decor to the piece that is modern

The last way to modernize old furniture is to add modern decor to the piece. Without physically chaning a piece of furniture you can modernize a piece simply by adding decor items that are more modern.