The creative adventures of myself and my family as we navigate the waters of homeschooling, teaching art, remodeling our home and refinishing furniture.
Friday, August 9, 2013
The Blue Dresser - garage sale gold!
I spent a few weeks searching cragislist for a cheap or free dresser to refinish for my son's room. I picked up this great find at a friend's garage sale for $10. You can see it here in the best "before" picture I could find (also a before picture of my son's whole room). It is cream-colored, on the right, and turned to the side. When I got it the veneer was lifting up on the top and was missing in several places on the drawers, but other than that it was in great shape. I had recently picked up a small can of navy blue paint off of the "oops" paint shelf at Home Depot and decided that it would look fantastic on this piece. After the pink dresser fiasco (see previous post), I decided that there would be no skipping of the sanding step. After removing the pulls, I busted out my little electric sander and went to work (so small task on a dresser with this much architectural detail). Next, I worked on the veneer. It was mostly lifting up at the edges. I peeled off a bit that I deemed unsalvageable, glued down some, and then used wood filler on the rest. After sanding that down I primed the entire piece with Kilz. This is where I made my second furniture refinishing mistake.... I got too excited! I applied 2 coats of the blue over the Kilz, but in my haste I did not wait quite long enough between coats... I mean it was dry to the touch....thats good enough right? Not so much, especially when you are doing the work on your back porch in Florida in the summer, where the humidity and temperatures increase paint dry time. Don't get me wrong. It looked great! ...but after a month or so in my 7 year old son's bedroom it become apparent that the paint didn't really have the opportunity to harden well in between coats. The top of the dresser is now covered in scratches from my son's rough style of play. Boo. I will need to do some more work to the top. Luckily I have some more of the blue paint, but I have been busy with other projects for a while so it will have to wait. I am thinking I may also put a few coats of polycrylic on just the top as well to protect this beautiful dresser from crashing cars, landing airplanes and exploding lego creations... boys are rough on furniture. sheesh. :)
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