james and jessica: i like a little color

hey, remember when i used to blog more than once a month and about more things that covington? no?? either way, i did a couple projects last spring i thought i'd show all 2 of you that still read this :)

so before we even moved to wheaton, i was on craigslist looking for a great dresser that i could paint with big drawers for storage in our... dining room? eating area? the place next to our table? we don't get real fancy around here :)

i found this awesome dresser in an old yellow color that was perfect for painting. we got there and james was all excited because it's apparently hand made with handwritten markings on the drawers and "dovetailed somethings or anothers" so apparently we stubbled across a great dresser for a great price.

(funny side-story - the week before we moved up here, i found a dresser that i loooved and the couple said they would hold it for me until we got there and then they totally sold it out from under me. well, we go to pick this one up and it was from the same people! i didn't realize it because the email addresses are all encrypted but they recognized mine and so they were all embarrassed and kept telling me how much better this one was than the other - how funny and totally random is that!)

so we got the dresser in and loaded it up with stuff and it sat there, not matching anything else in our entire apartment, for over a year. i was totally terrified of completely ruining it. on top of that, the handles had to be replaced because one was broken and they were an odd size, so i spent 6 months looking for odd sized handles that would fit and 6 months contemplating how hard it would be to fill in the holes and make new ones. when i'm nervous, i read articles on how to do things, so i read a ton of articles on spray painting, but we live in an apartment, so i kept trying to figure out if we could do it in one day in the parking lot of take it to a friend's house or should i just use a roller inside or a brush but it could smell and now we have a baby because i've waited so long but if i wait any longer than that baby is going to be crawling and i'm going to have a whole lot more trouble trying to paint it and what color should i paint it - red but reds are so hard to pick out but blues are real hard because i don't want another navy dresser but i don't want teal but... and so on and so forth.

SO one weekend i just did it. i had the paint guy pick out his brightest best-selling red and i filled the holes in with toothpicks and wood glue, per a woodworking magazine's direction, and just went for it. after priming and 2 coats of red, i was pretty sure i'd ruined it and we'd be tossing it in the dumpster, but the 3rd coat plus some poly did it and it's my favorite project i've ever done. it's not perfect - there are some brush strokes and such, but the red is fun and did i mention it holds a ton. plus, i'm just glad it's done and i don't have to tell everyone that comes over that i'm planning on painting it soon :)