Dresser Project!

So for the 5 of you who actually read my blog and follow along, you know I've been refinishing a dresser.  To refresh your memory, here's the beauty when I bought it.

She was a little rough around the edges.  So I cleaned her, stripped the paint, and started the painting.  I couldn't decide what I wanted to do, so of course I turned to my wisest council...Pinterest.

These were the two options I narrowed it down to.  Both are General Finishes Persian Blue milk paint, but the top one has a java gel stain on the top surface.  The bottom is glazed in Van Dyke Brown.  I couldn't decide which one I liked the best so then I turned to my Facebook friends.  And that helped exactly zero.  Everyone thought differently.  My uncle told me if I painted it two different colors I'd be "ruining it".  But my uncle isn't known for his decorating sense so...I didn't put a lot of stock in what he said.
After much deliberation, I decided on....the stained top with a glazed base.  Why?  Because I liked the look and wanted to try it.  No other reason than that.

Starting the process by staining the top.  

There's a little nick in the wood on the top, but I decided not to fix it because I think it gives the piece character.
She's an old dresser, so she's going to have some stories to tell.

Starting to paint.  Isn't it beautiful?  And yes those are random cans I'm using to prop it up off the floor.
I'm cheap crafty like that.

I love the difference in color.

So that was the painting portion.  I liked it, but I wanted to glaze it. When using glaze it's a tricky thing.  Basically you paint it all on and then wipe it off.  I've tried wiping it off with both paper towels (the dry method) and baby wipes (the wet method).  The baby wipes are a lot easier to use, but you end up wiping almost all of it off.  Which means you may end up glazing for a second time just to get the look you want.

Here's the glaze before wiping it off

After wiping it off.  The glaze sticks to any imperfections in the wood to give it a distressed look.
I ended up glazing twice because I wanted a little more to stick.

You can see the glaze in the grooves of the drawers.  

So then after getting the glaze the way I liked it, time to seal it.  I used a General Finishes Top Coat in flat finish.  Love that stuff.

And here's the finished look:

I lined the drawers because the wood was in rough shape even after scrubbing it

Here's a side-by-side look:

Stripping Paint

Let's be honest: Stripping paint off furniture has to be one of the worst things ever.  I mean seriously.  You pour on some toxic chemical that literally melts the paint off the wood.  And somehow this isn't bad for humans?  That's why, up until now I have avoided stripping paint like a whore avoids church.  But then I got this beauty...

 Let's take a moment and just look at her.  She's puuuurty.  But she was old and run down.  Poor thing.  It was my duty to make her beautiful again.

Her top is a little scratchy

In the past when I've repainted furniture I've just cleaned it, deglossed it, and repainted.  But this gal needed a full body treatment.  She was rough.  

First I gave it a good scrubbing with my favorite cleaner, Krud Kutter.  Seriously, buy it. Then it was time to face my nemesis, Paint Stripper.  That would be a good super-villain name...but I digress...

I used a product called CitriStrip.  As always I had researched and read a million blogs before actually committing to this, so I chose CitriStrip because it doesn't use super harsh chemicals and it smells like oranges.  

After removing all the hardware it was time to put on the first coat.  What I like about CitriStrip is that it's a gel.  So it sticks pretty well.  You just use a paint brush.  (I used a cheap one because I figured the paint stripper would ruin the brush and I didn't want to ruin an expensive one.)  The bottle said to make sure the room is well ventilated, but honestly it's January in Iowa.  It's cold.  I cracked open the front door but the fumes weren't a big deal.  I didn't wear protective eye wear either because I like to live on the edge.  I did wear gloves though.  

So after putting on a thick layer of the orangy-pink goo, I waited a while.  It says to wait anywhere from 30min-24 hours.  Whoa.  Big time span there.  Within a few minutes I could see the goo start to bubble up.  

The top starting to bubble

You know what the bubbles remind me of?  Barnacles.

So after about 45 minutes I got impatient and started scraping.  Make sure you use a plastic paint scraper, not some metal spatula looking thing.  I bought a plastic one at Home Depot for like $2.  If you use something other than plastic you could scrape off a big chunk of wood instead of just the paint.  *Another tip is to have a garbage bag or other plastic bag with you to attempt to keep the mess to a minimum*

There's wood under there!

It's looking almost pretty.

The drawers SUCKED to scrape.  And notice all the debris on the tarp?  It was messy.  OH, that little black spoon looking thing is my paint scraper.  It's a handy little thing.

I knew it was going to take another layer of stripper.  Ugh.  So back to putting on another layer.  I put on a thicker layer this time.  Like literally scooped up the goo and smeared it all over.  And I waited longer.  I waited for about 2 hours this time around.  

You can see the goo starting to work it's magic on the old paint and varnish.

Check out that awesomeness.  That was one swipe with my handy scraping tool.  Also, gross.  It was like black slime when it scraped off.  

After scraping and scraping, I rewashed everything with my Krud Kutter.  It was amazing how dirty this dresser was!  I'm pretty sure a prior owner was a smoker because I swear I was wiping off soot.  

WHAT?!  It's back to it's original wood!  It was cool that I could see where the original drawer pulls were.

I love the differences in wood grain.  

I also sanded all the wood to make sure any rough edges were gone.  And whatever paint needed a little incentive to give up the fight.

SO now it's ready for paint.  I'm in the process of doing that and will post when I'm done.