The dresser that made me mad once upon a time

After finishing my chair and cabinet projects, I started thinking---what to do now??? Well, we don't have room for anything else in our apartment currently, so I started to look around here, nothing came to mind...bummer!  But then, as I went to get a small appliance out of the dresser that we have in the kitchen (old old dresser with a few coats of paint on it), the drawer would NOT open.  No amount of force would open this drawer.  It was then when the lightbulb turned on---ah ha!  I should sand the sides of the drawers and then they will open easier, right?, and of course that led to a much larger project, because I started to think (which sometimes is a good thing, sometimes not so good...)

We have had this dresser for a few years now, and it was painted a lovely grayish blue color.  Not sure where we got it, I think it came along with Eric and his things.  Well, everytime we went to get something out of a drawer, 9 times out of 10 the drawer would get stuck.  Therefore, I would shout obscenities and kick the thing, hoping the drawer would magically open--it did not.  Here is the dresser before (mind you--not ugly, just annoying when the drawers don't open):

First things first, remove the drawers from the dresser (duh!), then remove all of the nobs, clean the inside of the drawers if they're nasty, like mine that had batter acid all over--hmmm.  Get out your handy dandy electric sander with extra coarse sand paper (40?) and go to town!  I started out with "fine" grit and that was a big no no....it did not work well for all of the paint.  I went through about 7 sander disc things throughout this whole process (pack of 5 is like $3.50 or so).  P.S. do not think it is okay to try and stop the sander with your hand, it hurts very badly ;-)  After sanding all of the drawer faces and sides (did not sand the inside, but instead just did a simple paint job over the top of the existing paint), I started sanding the rest of the dresser.  Be sure to get all of the paint off if you plan on STAINING rather than repainting.  After sanding, be sure to get ALL of the dust and dirt off of the surfaces before staining---this is VERY important!

After getting ALL of the paint off (yes I said all, however I did not sand the inside of the dresser shell (see where gray paint still exists) and the insides of the legs are not sanded, but its an accent color, ok?? ;-) ).  Anyways, after sanding and cleaning the wood, it is time to start staining!  This dresser only used a tiny can of stain, the smallest can you can get.  You can either use a brush to stain or you can use a terry cloth.  I used a cloth.  Make sure you have gloves on because stain does not come off your hands easily.  Dip your cloth into the stain and the take the cloth and apply to the surface in even lines, not letting the stain soak in to long.  Go back and forth the length of the dresser. Do one coat, and then take a dry cloth and go back over where you just stained.  Let that sit for 15 minutes or so, then apply another coat, wipe a dry cloth on it, and let it sit.  Repeat until you get your desired darkness.  Do this to all sides of the dresser, and all drawers.  Be sure to do the same number of coats on each part, otherwise the color will be off.  After staining and obtaining the desired color, let it dry for a few hours (I am no expert but I let mine sit for about 2 hours or so).  Apply a clear polyurathane to the whole thing.  They have spray cans with this but I used just regular cans and applied it with a cloth.  I applied it thick. Once it dries completely, put the knobs back on the drawers (I am reusing them since they are fairly new-ish, but you can buy new ones).  Put the drawers in the dresser and viola! You're done! :-). 

Revamping the old radio cabinet--Step 2

So, once the cabinet was all sanded down and veneer ripped off, it was time to figure out a color, because restaining it would just not be possible now. First, I primed it with white, because I am the most indecisive person in the world and took forever to figure otu what color to paint it.

  Beautiful, eh?

After priming, it was time to figure out a paint color.  Off to Home Depot I went!  After spending time in the paint aisle, looking blankly at all the paint samples, Eric and I decided that green would look nice with the rest of our stuff.  So, there I stood, with about 6 paint samples in my hand....finally choosing a darker sagey green color.  Although I was not planning on doing an accent color, they had a sample paint can on clearance for 50 cents, and guess what?? It was a darker green that went well with the color I picked out! Awesome!!!......Finally left Home Depot, went home, and started painting.

Done!  Inside, there are two shelves.  Eventually I will figure out something else with the weird doors but for now, it will have to do :-)

Revamping the old radio cabinet--step 1

About a month or two ago, I was out at yard sales on a normal Saturday morning, except this particular Saturday I had to be at school by 9am--limiting my time!  At the last yard sale before class, I came across this really cool cabinet, appearing to be a radio cabinet from, I don't know, the 1950s or so.  It was apparent it needed work, so I asked how much they wanted.  They reply with $20....Whoa, way too much!  So I said, well maybe I will be back later.  During my lunch break from school, I went back to that yard sale, and sure enough no one came along and bought that cabinet for $20, so I asked what the lowest they would go on it, because it really needed a lot of work.  They said $10....I offered $5...they accepted.  I get it home after class, unload it into the storage room, and it sat for a week.  The next weekend, I started to sand it, however the cabinet was covered in veneer from, what I learned, was from the 1920s or 1930s.  So, out came the handy scraper.  Sanding the entire piece and ripping off all the veneer, then sanding again, took a few weekends to complete, and probably about 15-20 hours.  Here are some before/during pictures.  Sorry for the sideways pics, not sure how to flip them.... :-)

So, that is it for prep work :-)

That Ugly Green Chair

Well, here goes nothing!  I've been told by many to create a blog about some of my bargain "finds" that I repurpose, yard sale tips and awesome finds, etc. so....here it goes!  I'll start with this ugly ugly green pleather chair that I found at St. Vincent during their usual Friday morning "make offer" sale.  It was sitting all alone, just waiting for someone to take it home.  I sat down in it (afterwards lysol-ing everything) and viola, love at first sit.  I asked the lady what they were wanting for the chair, and she said, of course, "make offer".  So, being the low-ball-offerer that I am and always probably will be, I offered $5....she took the offer.  I put the lovely green chair in my SUV and took it home, of course making people think I was crazy.  See below for the "before" shot:

First step was to remove all 1,476,992 brass brads that were probably about 150 years old (give or take ;-) ), then remove all 3,651,935 rusty nails underneath the brass brads.  Time to remove brads and nails: approximately 4 hours.  

After all that was removed, the nasty green pleather could be removed, and boy was that messy.  Underneath the pleather was "batting", and a straw material used for padding.  After that, cleaning out all the nasty cherrios, crumbs, a couple centipedes, and rusty nails from the batting I again Lysol'ed everything.  Time to remove nasty green pleather: 3 hours. 

After removing the pleather, I sanded the wood parts and restained them which thankfully only took 30 minutes, WHEW! 

After that, I took each piece of pleather, and wrote down where each piece went on the chair (VERY helpful, I might add....) Next step was to drag my loving boyfriend to Joann Fabrics to carefully choose the appropriate fabric for the chair that would match our decor (and I had him calculate how much I would need......).  After that, I laid down each and every piece (18 to be exact), traced, and cut out the pieces.  Next it was time to whip out my staple gun and get staplin'!  This part was not as frustrating as taking out all the nails, but it ranked pretty high, along with sewing the damned cushion!  Once all the fabric was stapled on all pretty-like (about 3-4 hours), the old brass brads made a reappearance!!  I only allowed a small percentage of them to come back home as there was no way in hell I was going to go through that torture again.  So, after about half of the nails became bent and my thumb being hammered, that process was done in about 1 hour. 

WHEW my first reupholstry project is done.....but wait, wouldn't it be lovely to add a nice little pillow too??  Okay, after 12ish hours, the chair was FINALLY done. 

Mind you, this was not done in one day or even one week.....Here is the finished project (although no where near perfect, I love it :-)  )