To refresh your memory:
barf.And now the new and improved version:
I seriously cannot get enough of this dresser. Sometimes I go and stare at it when nobodys home.... whispering sweet nothings (which may or may not be borderline dresser sexual harassment). Here are a few more close ups of her sexy details:
Here's how I did it...
1) I picked up my hammer and removed all the hardware. No, thats not right... Screwdriver? Is that what that things called? Anyway, I removed all of them and their screws and placed them all in a bucket. I still have them in case anyone is interested in purchasing them at an inflated price. I promise they are totally awesome (and my totally awesome, what I mean is 'kind of smell like old lady' and 'downright scary).
2) I cleaned the snot of of that thing with a damp rag mixed with oxy clean to get any of the old lady goop off that may have been caked on.
3) I grabbed a tube of wood filler I had picked up at home depot. Please note that when you are using wood filler it is not wise to think 'oh, i'll just glob a big glob on and sand id down later. This will NOT work to your advantage in step 4...
4) I picked up a block of sandpaper and started sanding. 2 hours later I had about a square foot partially sanded and was ready to quit for good. None of my big globs of wood filler were able to be sanded down. Luckily I was able to borrow a hand held electric sander and got right back to it. Now i've heard that I should 'sand with the grain', which I did. Then I realized I was using paint, and not stain, and realized it probably didn't matter which way I sanded. I could have sanded upsidedown and backwards and I don't think it would have mattered. Because I blobbed on all that wood filler I was left with some raised bumps on my finished piece. No matter how long or hard i sanded these bumps would not go away. Granted I could probably have sanded longer and harder, but I was impatient and wanted somewhere to store my purses and short shorts asap).
4) After my arms became numb I figured i'd sanded enough. About 90% of the stain was off, and what hadn't come off was dull and faded. The faded blobs were still there. Damn those blobs...
5) I cleaned the snot out of the dresser again to get all that sawdust off. Although I had never done this before, I figured that mixing saw dust with a fresh coat of paint was bad news bears.
6) I used a foam roller and a small paintbrush to cover my entire piece with a coat of oil based primer (which BTW takes about 4 weeks to come off your skin. And is a pain in the rear-o to get off your paintbrush). In hindsight I should have sanded the primer once it dried to get a nice smooth finish.
7) I used a latex based paint in a semi gloss finish from behr and plopped that down over the coat of primer. I then used a clear coat to finish up the project. One mistake I wish I hadn't made was putting the clear coat onto the top and side edges of the drawer. It makes the drawer stick when trying to pull it out.
8) New hardware was added to the front and we dragged it upstairs to see how it would fit in our guest bedroom.
Other than my minor little snaffoos, I'm pretty happy with how this project turned out. I got a dresser for free, spent $45 on paint, primer, and new hardware, and got a fancy place to store all my things that aren't in season or are overflowing from my closet. LOVE IT!
