what not to do when your refinishing a stand

Before the holidays, I ventured down a rarely travelled path of decorating my guest room.  I was so happy to have a guest room again that I couldn't leave it untouched. First, I kicked Cate to the basement helped Catherine move into her new bedroom in our basement. It was her idea. 


Then I went on the hunt for things. 

You know .... things.

The last thing acquired was a little stand from a local thrift store.  I paid $20 for a lot of items - lot, as in group. Can you find it?  Yeah, now you know why I had to give it a face lift.

So, not knowing much about this stuff, I asked.  The hubs said, "eh, just sand it, prime it well, and use a quality paint and you'll be fine."

Sa-weet!  I'm in like Flint!

So I did just that.  I sanded.  I applied two coats of primer.  I sprayed on three light even coats of red paint. 

And I got this ......

Those white spots are the stripper I ended up using

Uhm, not good.  My brother-in-law just happened to be around.  He asked if it had urethane underneath.  Yeah.  "Well, that's the problem.  Nothing sticks to urethane".  Wha?  Are you serious?!  But your brother said, sand well, prime well, use quality paint and no problem. Did you catch that?  Note that I said your brother, not my husband, and not Mike. "Yeah, Mikey should have known better". 

Nice.

C'est la vie!  Live and learn. 

So, I took it all the way back to the original wood, using a paint/finish stripper, some good old elbow grease (sandpaper) and a Fein tool.  Eventually, it looked like this.

Then I started over, primed, painted .. I also added some glazing, and finished with a couple of coats of shellac.   

I ended up with this!

I added that adorable drawer pull and some little plastic feet on the bottom to save the hardwood floors. 

As for the room, well, it's a work in progress.  I kind of went about in my own weird way.  And I'm glad I did. 

At first I wanted to paint the walls yellow.  There's nothing wrong with yellow, mind you.  But, I'm adapting a "live with it and see" attitude before I start anything major. I hate painting, so that's a major for me.  I am going to paint the bedroom walls, but they're remaining blue. 

I'll post more about the room later.  Once it's painted and I make the headboard. 

Yep, you heard me right.

I think.

P.S. Has anyone out there ever used a Fein tool?  Ooooh, baby, if I didn't have access to one already, it would have definitely been on my Christmas list.