Vacuuming in high heels & pearls

Today I spent some time working on the dresser that I pulled out of the trash a couple of months ago. I used my palm sander for the first time and sanded off all the old varnish, a surprisingly easy task.

I decided to paint it rather than restain it, because the wood is nothing special to look at. I thought I could take the easy route and use spray primer and the new spray latex paint, but it did not go as planned. The primer is okay, although I'm not actually sure how much coverage I'm supposed to have. I think I used the whole can so I hope it is enough.

The paint was another story. I don't like the consistency of it at all! It seems much wetter than regular spray paint and bubbled easily. Where it dried it did leave a very smooth finish, but I'm not sure I like it. The real problem is that the nature of the veneer is such that there are tiny grooves all over, and the spray paint doesn't get down into the grooves. So they stay dark and show through the painted surface. I think I'm going to have to use a roller with a bit of a nap to get the paint down into the little cracks. I'm a little concerned that I won't be able to get as smooth of a finish with the roller and regular latex paint as I could with the spray paint. We'll see.

The other problem I've run into is the drawer pulls. This dresser has 2 knobs and 3 pulls. It seems that the standard distance between the holes for pulls is 3" which makes finding pulls to fit my 4" holes very difficult! I have a couple of options: 1) spend big $$ on 4" pulls, 2) fill the holes with wood putty, sand, and drill new 3" holes, or 3) reuse the current pulls. I'm going with option 3 for now, as it's the cheapest! On a whim I picked up a clearanced can of Chrome spray paint today, so I sprayed the pulls and they don't look half bad! More like a nickel than a chrome, really, which is what I was hoping for anyway. I will have to see how they look once I get the dresser painted, and if they don't look good I may just repaint them. That would still be cheaper than buying new 4" pulls! I do have to buy new knobs, as one was missing when I got the dresser. Why on earth are knobs and pulls so darn expensive? Highway robbery, I tell you! I'm dreading replacing the pulls whenever I get around to refinishing Quin's old dresser--I think that one has 10 handles! Cha-ching! I may have to try the spray paint trick then as well--I should still have some chrome paint left over!

By the time I realized my problem with the paint it was almost 6 pm and threatening to rain, so I put everything back in the garage and can hopefully try again on Monday during Maren's naptime if the weather permits. I'm anxious to get this thing done and up into the guest bedroom! Mostly I just need to actually finish a project! I keep buying things at thrifts with the idea that I'll somehow 'fix' or alther them, and then they just sit around here. I need the boost actually finishing a project will give me! I think the next UFO (UnFinished Object) I need to work on is the pink pillow that I bought a while back--I ripped off the old backing and cut out the broken stitches, so it needs to be restitched and then washed in Woolite to hopefully get the pencil lines out of the fabric. Then it will need to be carefully ironed and I need to find some new backing fabric and a pillow form to put it all back together. That will make 2 projects down, about 6 to go! Baby steps, right?