Make Something: Dresser Redux

A while back I painted my dresser green.  You may remember it's less than beautiful appearance on a pervious post.  Truth be told, I hated that color almost immediately.  Initially I had planned on paining it chartreuse, but Jason was way slightly freaked out about the color.  So I tried to strike a compromise and go with something a little less in your face...and ended up with the pale celery.  Is that even a color?

I immediately wanted to repaint it, but I didn't know what color.  So, I left it like that...for almost 2 years.  When I finally stumbled on the perfect pillow fabric, I knew the green had to go...it only took almost another year for that to happen.



So Tuesday night, after missing my yoga class due to a  Girls' Trip planning sesh (yay!), I randomly decided it was high time to paint that stupid dresser.  So I lugged it outside in the 100+ degree heat and went to painting it.  Being the lazy person that I am, I only carted the dresser to my outside landing, which is about 4ft x 8ft.  This did not leave me much room for picture taking, so my apologies for the scant in-progress photos.

Here's the pastel celery in all its glory.

First coat of paint.  It would have covered better if I used primer, but I didn't have any on hand.  And I'm lazy.  The trick with painting is to use thin, even strokes.  Don't worry about perfect covering with only one application.  It's probably not going to happen.  You'll be better off doing 2 or 3 coats (this one took 3) than glopping 1 super thick coat on.

After the 3rd coat of paint, I used a really dark stain (Minwax walnut) to give the paint some extra depth.  I find that paint by itself is a little boring.  There are no picture of this step because it's super messy (I was literally spotted after I finished) and you have to move pretty quickly before the stain dries.  The key to staining something is to cover a small area, let the stain get somewhat tacky and then buff off whatever you do not want.  If you let the stain dry too long it'll be almost impossible to remove.

After staining and letting it dry for over 6 hours, it was time for the shellac.  The instructions said 24 hours for the shellac that I was using, but I figured sitting in the 100 degree sun for 6 hours should be plenty.  The stain wasn't tacky to the touch either, so I was good to go.  Shellac is the easiest step.  Simply brush it on in an even coat and let it dry.  I use a water based polycrylic, because it dries fast and can be cleaned up with water.

 Much better.