I got this set at a garage sale this summer. The plan was to do a little Miss Mustard Seed treatment and paint the bottoms white and stain the tops. The headboard is done, but the dresser and changing table are over there on my to-do list.
I started with the headboard. Spray paint on the bottom, sand and stain the top.
Problem #1: The palm sander left these nasty marks on the headboard. So I sanded with a finer grit, put another coat of stain on it, and called it a day.
Primed and a couple coats of spray paint:
The finished product will have to wait for the big reveal.
So after I had trouble with the sander on the first piece of the set, I decided to use a chemical stripper on the dresser and changing table. It worked pretty well.
Except…
Problem #2: Partway through the changing table, I quit, and let the gunk dry on the changing table. Bad idea. That was about 6 months ago.
So I had to sand to get the dried on gunk off. You can guess where this leads, right?
Problem #3: I accidently sanded through the veneer in one spot (the middle, left in the photo) so then I quit sanding quite so much. (Problem #4) I should have known that I left too much finish on in some spots, but it wasn’t obvious to me until this:
BLECH! And, I have those same sander marks. (Problem #5)
I went back and sanded where I left the finish on, and restained. But it was really uneven (Problem #6) so I put a darker stain on it, hoping to hide the imperfections. And the darker stain looked terrible. (Problem #7) And now it’s ruined. Totally. I’m giving up.
I briefly considered using it as a potting bench, but my dad just happened to have a 2 ft. x 4 ft. piece of 3/4 in oak plywood laying around at his house, so he brought it over and I’m going use it instead.
I’m still sanding the top of the dresser (by HAND) to get every last bit of finish off, and I hope to have a full reveal of all three pieces by next weekend! Do you have any disaster projects like this?
