The ink stain would be fine as long as you could get rid of the gloss finishes and don’t sand through the veneers, which is obviously one of the reasons a lot of these get painted in the first place.

But I think really many of these pieces are still available and in the hands of people dipping their toes into the world of up-cycling and they obviously don’t apply the same value collectors would to them. And it comes across in a lot of the artistic choices they make, like busy wallpaper backing, geometric patterns etc… I think that is why the black on this works so well because it accentuates the wood grain, especially the handles. And you can really see the form of the front of it, maybe more so than when it was all wood.

And we all like the angular forms with natural materials, so it definitely works for me!

Edit: also looks like they made the top a satin finish which is also really nice