This adorable chest of drawers has been a…. challenge even before I ever met it.
I spent more time than I care to mention scouring second-hand stores, contacting people on craigslist looking for the perfect vintage dresser to fill a spot that has previously been held by our (hated) highchair. I’m about to chuck that thing to the curb as soon as I can talk my four-year-old into watching his morning show at the actual kitchen table and not in a seat for a tiny baby. That highchair is the worst. I loved it when I first purchased it, and the colors are fabulous but all the nooks and cranny's… I’m certain there’s food stuck in there from three years ago. Doesn’t that make you want to run out and purchase one? Anyway, I digress, back to the dresser.
So, I finally found THE chest in an unlikely place- one Saturday eating lunch that also is part of a cool little store. I snagged it from another man who was interested it was able to purchase it. Victory! Finally! After months of searching, I finally found the perfect one. The sales people loaded it in the van, and I was on the way. This was one of the weekends of torrential downpours and Corey was out running errands, and the baby was napping so I was just going to wait patiently for him to return it to unload it. After all it took two men to load it up. My patience lasted a record five minutes before I decided I could bring it in myself. I had to park in the driveway and not in the garage due to another project I was working on so I put on my raincoat and headed out to the van to figure out the best way for me to carry in the chest of drawers by myself… without having to take out any of the drawers because it would be easier to carry them in all at once. Easier not lighter, I’m not strong, but I am determined, which counts for more than actual physical strength. First I maneuvered the chest out of the van and onto the driveway and then stood there in the rain trying to figure out the next step. After trying to hoist it up on the double stroller and failing, I decided just to pick it up and see how far I could carry it. I surprised myself and got pretty far before collapsing of exhaustion. I took a tiny break to grab some M&M’s and an old towel and was able to put the chest onto the towel and drag it to the doorway then I lifted it up into the house and put it on a rug and dragged it to its new home. It looked great, just like I’d imagined. But not before I got stains all over my favorite jeans. Then I waited for Corey to come home and help me drag it back to the garage so that I could start painting it.
I painted that stupid thing with four coats of Annie Sloan chalk paint, and the original stain would immediately bubble up to the surface and show through my lovely gray paint- pink. I texted my girlfriend (the google queen), and she told me to put polyurethane over the paint to seal in the original stain and then paint over that. It sounded good to me so off to Lowes I went. Before making my purchase, I spoke to the paint manager and explained my problem to him and what I intended to do. He looked and me and said, “You are not going to like what I have to tell you at all. But you’re going to have to sand off all that paint and stain and start over.” I almost lost it right there. This “simple” project, one that I’ve done a million times before, was becoming a huge pain in my… you know. I told Corey that I needed him to sand all that paint off, and I had to start painting over. He sanded ½ a drawer and that took him 45 minutes so he went to Lowes and bought spray poly and sprayed them to seal in the old stain and it worked! I did have to poly one of the drawers (loving referred to as the possessed drawer) four times before I couldn’t see any pink under it but worked!
Finally!!! Everything was painted beautifully and ready for wax, and it only took about 700 weeks. Everything went fine with waxing the drawers but when I went to wax the chest I had a black stain (from another project) smear all over the top. I almost chopped that thing up right there. After composing myself, I repainted, rewaxed and carried everything in and assembled it.
**Excuse the excessive snark in this post. My dog got sprayed by a skunk at 11 last night, and I’m fairly certain that I smell like a skunk today, so that’s putting me in a cranky mood. But, don’t get me wrong. This chest of drawers was a huge disaster even without the snark 😁
***Here's a closeup of the Anthropologie pulls 😍
