Seal timber before painting

Hi,
I'm considering painting a small cupboard that my grandfather built. It originally housed a radio I think but has been a general cupboard for a while now.
It's a bit bumped around by the kids and needs fixing up.
I have a few of my grandfather's pieces and he always built with Western red Cedar and used some sort of grain filler and stain with the result being that the timber ends up looking a bit plasticy. I've partially stripped this small cupboard and while the timber underneath is nice its nothing special.
So I'm thinking about painting it rather than clear finishing it. Might be nice to have some colour in among all the other timber pieces too.
So I'm wondering - should I change my mind at some stage in the future and want it back to timber is there anything I can do/apply now, before painting, to assist in that?
Is it possible to stop the paint from soaking into the timber but also enable it to have a decent bond?

Thanks

Jon

Use shalac as a sanding sealer.

The shelac will seal up the timber nice and stop any bleeding and just about anything will go over shelac.

think about finishing in acrillic laquer.....that will pretty well scrub off with thinners.

cheers