Retro Fabulousness

I have a system when I roam through an estate sale. I walk through each room quickly, scanning for items I can’t live without. If it’s a must have, it becomes attached to my hip. If it’s a maybe, I might just pick it up on my second walk through the place.

This dresser is the exception to every rule I have. I didn’t even see it until I was about to walk out the door. It was piled high with stuff and it was in obvious need of a lot of TLC. In my own little world I became incredibly indecisive. That’s when my partner in crime that day, my father-in-law Bob, became the enabler.

“It’s a good price and I think you can fix it up,” he reasoned. “If you want it, we’ll load it in the truck.”

Sold.

When we cleared off the top of it, it became a little clearer why no one wanted this beauty. There was a big patch taken out of the paint – someone started to refinish it and gave up.

I took it home and attacked the top of it with an electric hand sander and the toughest grit sandpaper I could find. (I wore a mask to do this, of course). Guess what? It didn’t budge. None of it. Well, that is just not a good sign.

I took a photo into my favorite neighborhood hardware store where they know me by name and they take care of me, I knew they would point me in the right direction and they pointed me to this, a product from 3M:

I’ve never used paint stripper, so I was terrified that if I left it on even a minute too long that it would melt the entire dresser to the ground. (This is the joy of trying something for the first time.) I read the directions 17 times and left the stripper on the surface for the maximum amount of time. I could not contain my giddiness as I approached the top of that dresser with a putty knife. Imagine my surprise when it didn’t budge even one speck of that paint. Ugh.

My anxiety over working with paint stripper had flown out the window, so I added a few more gobs of it (it has a nice, thick consistency) to the top of the dresser and I went to bed for a solid eight hours of sleep.

I woke up like a child on Christmas morning and had putty knife in hand, in my garage, in my pajamas. The first swipe took off all that paint like it was butter. It was amazing.

Once the top of it was stripped I had a nice, even surface with which to work. I could hardly wait the required time before I could start priming and painting.

I used Rust-Oleum White Primer and then I topped it with Rust-Oleum Painters Touch in a satin “Lagoon” blue.  I almost passed out from joy at the look of it.

The original gold hardware got the bling of silver spray paint (I just lined up the hardware in a cardboard box and put a few coats on it).

When she was finished, she looked like this.

I took her to a local store where I consign a few items and she sat on the floor for just a few hours before going home with someone.

If I could only keep them all.

Tags: blue, lagoon blue, retro dresser, Rustoleum