"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either." ~ Elizabeth Zimmerman

3/7/16

I've Painted Something

I spent the weekend painting a piece of furniture. ('Scuse the blur. It's a phone pic.) This thing was as ugly fuggly as furniture can get.



I've had this dresser for a long time. It was bought new and unfinished. It was painted white at first, then about 25 years or so ago I painted it this now hideous mahogany color. Not sure why I did that. I was never happy with it. Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was going to give this to my bff Judy when I bought her buffet which she is selling. She was kind of excited about it and talked about painting it. Well, I ended up having to change my mind on the buffet (rats!) and I'm pretty much stuck with the dresser for a little while longer. I need it cuz it's full of stuff. Stuff that would have gone in that buffet. I have no other place for the stuff.

I thought about the fact that Judy was going to paint it. I found myself wondering if I hate the color of that dresser so much, why I haven't done something about it? Why hadn't I thought of painting it before? I promptly went to the hardware store and bought what I needed to improve this dressers appearance. I even bought new knobs for it. I've always hated those stupid wooden knobs it came with.

On Friday morning I started my project. I took the knobs off the drawers and spent time sanding the whole thing and filling holes with putty in preparation for painting. I even did a little repair work. A chunk broke off one side about 12 years ago and I've been saving it all this time. Surprisingly, I remembered where I put that chunk. I glued it back on where it belongs.

I decided to paint it a semi-gloss black. I put the first coat of paint on the dresser itself later that afternoon. Then left it to dry until morning.

I got the second and third coats done Saturday afternoon. Here it is in progress.



For the first time, I used a small 4 inch roller instead of a brush. Boy, does that speed things up, and no brush marks! It took about 10 minutes to give it that first coat. Only 2 hours of drying time required between coats. I made sure to lightly sand between coats too. Sunday I painted the drawers.

Here is the finished dresser with it's fancy new hardware. Ignore the broken corner on the top left drawer. Couldn't find that chunk. Maybe one of these days I'll get sweet hubby to make a new front for it.



What an improvement!I am so happy with it. Now I'm looking at other ugly wood furniture in the house and wondering why I haven't done something about them? I see more painting in my future. However, I'm going to have to wait a bit. It seems that little bit of work has set my shoulder healing back a week. I was very sore and glad I had a physical therapy appointment this morning.

By the way, I found these two web articles about painting wood furniture very helpful:

How to Paint Furniture
The 5 Biggest Mistakes You Make When Painting Furniture

On Saturday morning sweet hubby and I went to a Home and Garden show held at the North Idaho Fairgrounds. We have 3 major items we've been saving up our money for. A new roof, a backyard fence, and a garage. I want a garage so so bad. That was the purpose of going to the show. To do research on getting a garage built. The trip was successful. We know who we want to build it, and about how much it will probably cost us. Next step, actually getting it started. I can hardly wait! I'll be calling the fellow we talked to later this week.

I knitted too. Got the body and one sleeve done on the current baby sweater.



Live long and prosper. \\//

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