Minneapolis Homemaking

  Hello world! 

  Let's sum things up pretty quickly: I moved to Minneapolis with my boyfriend of three years, Zach. Only three months ago I was in LA... but the time has gone so quickly. I thought it would be much simpler to up-and-move across the country, but there has been SO MUCH to do.

...did I mention that neither of us had any furniture upon move-in? The place was empty and echo-y initially, but now we've now got some desks, a dining table and a couch... all in our living area. Oh the luxury!

These are hanging by the front door and the couch-area. Perfect for lazy evenings and Saturdays. 

I'll add a picture of that tomorrow.

Our dining-area, which faces the couch-area. The painting hides a secret.

  But in this post I'm going to go on at length specifically about the bedroom furniture. 

  Or rather, the process that the bedroom furniture went through! Partly so that next time I go to paint furniture I can use THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE PAST to do a good job.

  From here on, this post is more like a furniture-painting tutorial. You've been warned.

  One plain pine dresser was fetched from Craigslist, and a a beat-up veneer bedside table came down with Zach from Bemidji.

This stuff is miraculous. See the filled dents on the drawer front? 

  Step One: fill in chips and nicks with wood filler! Then sand the surface even and smooth when dry. If the dent is really big, you may need to build it up over a few layers, so it has a chance to dry throughly.

A huge corner chip was filled in... I tried to sculpt it to the shape of the trim. 

(There's an after picture a bit further down... you decide if I was successful!)

Originally a "25 cent buy at a thrift store," says Zach.

  This dresser took the most wood filler! The legs took a huge amount of reconstruction; the water damage in the top also needed much attention. What a mess!

  Step Two: A nice 150 grit sanding to get everything nice and smooth.

  Alternate Step Two:  I didn't feel like sanding the whole dresser. It would be a huge pain! So I wiped it down with some deglosser. Super easy. Two coats, wiped on with a clean cloth.  (I did sand down where wood filler was applied, as well as some water damaged areas. It was pretty mandatory.)

  And I was ready to prime! (Step Three. Post-priming shown above.) I used a small roller to cover the big areas and an angle brush to get in the tight corners. I used an oil-based primer by Zinsser- they cover better than water-based. It was pretty thick stuff though.

  Factoid: You can put both oil- and water-based paints on top of oil-based primer. Just don't layer oil and water based PAINTS. There will be gross bubbles!

This is what that corner looked like after I sanded it into shape.

Healing magic! The bedside table was really well smoothed-out as well.

 After the two primer coats, I lightly sanded off as much of the roller texture as I could with 220 grit. The roller marks persisted on the drawer fronts... next time I might do three coats of primer so that I can sand a bit more vigorously to get rid of that texture. Or just use a brush for the primer application. It's easier to sand down that texture, although the primer is so thick it is not fun to brush on.

  I used a spray primer for the detailed regions of the dresser. I didn't want to ruin the sharp lines with gooey primer. I'm glad I did this, they turned out really nicely.

The white paint looks very similar to how it did after the primer.

  Step Four: Two coats of a latex, water-based paint. For the main body, Behrs Decorator White in eggshell. (Not on the inset panels! They had a separate destiny.)   I added a bit of a product called Floetrol to the paint- it lengthens the drying time of the paint so that you don't have to deal with 'brush lines' as you paint. Keeps your surface nice and smooth!

  ...Next time I think I might try brighter colors. Looking at it now it looks kinda bland and pastel. But I'll try not to be too regretful on color choice... I think the white looks fresh. And remember that sea-scape painting hanging above the little dining table, from earlier in this post? Eventually that will be hanging in the bedroom. The seafoam was an attempt to tie that in... I can't help but picture these in peacock blue instead. Ah well, no second chances here.

  Then I carefully painted the insets with two coats of seafoam. (also latex Behr, because it was cheap. Look on Censational Girl, linked below, for a good post on the ideal furniture paints) I would have loved to use painters tape to get a SUPER CLEAN LINE, but it recommends waiting until the paint has cured... 30 days. Nope. 

  I put a coat of Minwax Water-based Glossy Polyacrylic on it all to protect the paint job. I got a really smooth finish by using a cheap foam brush. (Note: Oil-based Poly is better protection, but yellows over time.) Three coats went on the top surfaces (sanding lightly with 220 between the coats) since they'll have more wear. You have to be really slow with the stuff, otherwise you'll put bubbles in your finish. Luckily, it spreads like a dream and doesn't require much brushing.

  I admit, sometimes I just stroke it. So smooth! You can't see it, but the turtle has a baby plant in it. Mr Turtle was a housewarming gift from Marisa, and the little plant came all the way from California with me!

Our current set-up.

  Hallway view! We were originally going to paint the walls. Without that, it's an overwhelming amount of white. Hmmm... that's the next step for this room. Adding some huge amounts of color/grey to the walls of this room. And maybe a bed frame. And a rug. So much left to do!

  Sweet little dresser! I'm happy with how it turned out. Clean, smooth finish.

  Until next project!

     Elise

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Blogs that really helped me figure out how I wanted to do this project:

Centsational Girl - How to Paint Furniture

and

Young House Love - How to Paint Furniture