I am back! I may have been silent, but I have been busy and I am excited to share what I have been up to. Since I last blogged I found a really cool new job, which has really cut into my project time, but I suppoooose it’s a good thing.
We have been slowly but surely working on turning our bedroom into a place we actually like, instead of a perfectly fine, but not super functional spot. Part of that process (which I will share in upcoming posts) was finding a bureau that fit in the nook to the right of the fireplace. A simple task you might think, but no. I was even willing to buy something new! (Gasp) But alas, nothing I could find fit the dimensions. I wanted to get the largest bureau that would fit, and the deck was stacked against me, until I came across this monstrosity beauty at the Eastern Market flea market. In all her orange glory. Woof.:
This was going to require some major surgery. I gathered my arsenal and got to work. Here is what I used.
- Random orbital sander and tons of discs
- Paint stripper
- Gloves
- Chip brushes
- Scrapers
- Empty paint can for nasty chemicals
- Mask (no really, USE IT)
- White paint/brushes
- Stain/Brushes
- Fine grit sandpaper – I like 220
- New knobs
- Jigsaw
First I took out all of the drawers and removed and chucked the knobs. Then I stripped the orange finish off, following the instructions on the can. Basically glop a good layer on, let it sit BUT NOT DRY and then scrape off the gunk. I let it dry by accident because I am a dummy and it was a whooooole thing. After a couple of rounds of stripping (breezing over what was a fairly laborious process) I sanded the whole thing down. I planned to stain the drawers and top, so I made sure no hint of the orange remained on those.
Once I recovered and my nostrils stopped stinging, I used a large oval platter to trace an arc around all of the scrolly-business at the bottom. I jigsawed out the scrolly-pieces and sanded down the edges, leaving a pretty good looking bottom, if I do say so myself.
And with that, I was down to “blank slate” status. I painted the frame part with a couple of coats of regular Benjamin Moore Ultra White, sanding between coats. I stained the top and fronts of the drawers with several coats of MinWax in Special Walnut. Brush on, let sit, wipe off. Repeat. I may seal it with paste wax at some point, but it has a been a few months and so far it is holding up well.
The bureau needed 12 knobs and trying to find cool ones that didn’t break the bank was tricky. I found a few candidates at the usual sources, but the thought of putting over $100 in knobs on a $60 dresser just hurt. I finally found these at D. Lawless. They are actually my favorite and somehow they were on sale for $.50 each at the time (down from a whopping $1).
So, all put back together, here she is!
Not bad, eh? Here is a side-by-side for your viewing pleasure.
I hope you like it! I will be sharing the other bedroom progress soon.
XO, Julia
The most important step here is to start by finding something interesting on tv. Wrapping the lamp post is easy and doesn’t take tooooo long, but it is boring. Once I landed on a Downton rerun, the steps were as follows – glue, wrap, twist; glue, wrap, twist; continue ad infinitum. Jk just feels that way. I tried to keep a little bit of tension on the sisal and made sure each wrap was right up against the last. Once I was almost at the end of the second section, I screwed on the top third and wrapped that as well, leaving room for the cord to come out. I wrapped it all the way to the top and cut of the rest. (I used it for my 
Just Something I Whipped Up 
