Month: February 2015

Before

After

The person who stripped and painted it the first time didn’t remove the hardware for stripping, so why would they bother to do so before painting? The brasses are slopped with green and cream paint. I boiled them in water, then scrubbed away the paint with a toothbrush, then gently buffed them with #000 steel wool. I didn’t want to remove all the patina.

After a coat of linseed oil. One coat every day for a week, then one coat every week for a month, then apply another coat once a year or so. This wood is so maltreated, though, that it may need more than a week’s worth of intensive treatment. We’ll see!

You can see in the second photo where the drawer pulls were, as well as all the scratches made by the person who originally stripped the piece.

These are too deep to sand out. I’m not even going to try to get the rest of the paint out of them, because I don’t have the patience or the motivation. They are honest scars.

Those stupid fake credit cards that come in the mail make great paint spreaders. Every arty-crafty person knows that. They also work really well for spreading stripper. Much better than a brush.

A dry, hard kitchen sponge makes just about the best sanding block EVAR.

The more you know…

Before

Missing trim

More missing trim

Cat scratches (My cats did not do that.)

Paint job (I did not do that!)

Paint job

I got this dresser from a coworker a couple of years ago. I’ve been meaning to re-finish it or paint it or do something with it, because A) the colors are kind of awful and not something I’d choose, B) the paint job is kind of awful and not something I’d do, and C) it’s got a lot of damage.

I finally got around to starting on it this weekend. I thought I’d strip the top and maybe the drawer fronts, then paint the body, since there was so much trim that was damaged and missing. Once I got some of the paint off, though, I realized that it had been stripped before, then re-painted. The person who stripped it the first time did not remove the knobs, so they left paint under them. (And paint on them, because they also didn’t remove them when they re-painted it.) Worse, though, they scratched the living hell out of it. I’m assuming the deep gouges were from rough living, but the lighter scratches I found were clearly made by someone who stripped the piece and had not one single clue what they were doing.

Basically, it’s a hot mess. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it. Right now, the plan is to finish stripping the drawer fronts and maybe the sides, oil them with linseed oil, and paint the body. I’ll just live with the scratches. Of course, I may change my mind tomorrow.