Do It Right the First Time

My hubby really supports me in what I enjoy doing, which is refinishing furniture.  He also know's that sometimes it's hard to find furniture that I can fix up.   Well a couple of weeks ago he was out of town and came across this dresser and a desk, (I'll show you the desk in a later postiing).  It was really sweet of him, especially since he was in his small car and to get the dresser home he had to put a blanket down and attach it to the roof of  his car.  Let me tell you, he got horrible gas milage, and I really had to scrub to get the bugs off the top of that dresser!  I wouldn't have bought this dresser to fix up because of the laminant on the top and the condition the drawers were in.  They didn't have glides on them and I know how hard it is to find the right one's some times.  Take a look at her.

I decided to jump in and see if I could finish it in couple of hours, I knew what I was going to do with it after staring at it for a long time.  The drawers are wood but the top had laminate on it, I knew I needed to sand every thing...or did I?  My thought process went something like this.  "You know you need to sand the top or else it won't stick",  "no, they make primer and paint so good that you won't need to".  "You'll be sorry if you don't sand",  "no, it'll work".   And so it went until I talked myself out of sanding, which, I knew better the whole time I was doing it.  Here's the headache I had to clean up just for trying to skip a step.

After it dried really good I ran my finger nail over it and it peeled right off.  Yep, I knew that would happen, why did I do it?  Hubby suggestd that I just lay a wet cloth on it since it is latex paint and that I would be able to scrape it right off.  Look how good that worked, I almost didn't need the scrapper.  So I was back to square one except for the rest of it was painted white and looked really nice.  I did discover that I really like the top in a dark color rather then white like the rest of it.  So I decided to use AS Graphite paint, (I know, I know, no sanding needed).  It went on great and I finished it off with just the right shade of color to match the distressing

On the drawers I decided to lightly paint over the scrolling that was on them so they would show through really good.  I replaced the little knobs, which were really understated, with these that make a statement.  The top, handles, and distressed area match really good in color, I was really pleased that it turned out like that.  I also painted the kick board in the graphite as well.

I'm not sure you can tell, but I really like how that looked.  I used Glidden paint in satin, the color is a soft white called Swiss Coffee.  It looks kind of bright here but it's actually a soft, warm, white.  To finish the project I used Min Wax rub on poly on the top and the kick board.  It doesn't look anything like the dresser he brought home, does it?

 

My Hubby did really good by choosing this one, it has turned out to be one of my favorites.

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