Re-Finishing: Sanding is DONE

We finally finished sanding on last Saturday (October 13th)... If you're keeping track, that means it was two weeks of sanding!  It took forever, but we did it right - we got all of the old finish off and the wood is ready for the next step!

However, before we can prime and paint, we need to get the sawdust cleaned off the furniture.  We moved all the furniture into the driveway and we swept out my parents' garage where we were keeping everything; the garage had a film of sawdust from it blowing in.  Once we got that done, we started using my dad's air compressor to blow off the furniture.  For the bigger pieces, we went over it all about three times to get everything off.  For the drawers, we just went over it twice.  We started with the big pieces and moved onto the drawers.  As soon as we got done with each piece, we put it back into the garage and made sure not to blow any sawdust back into the garage.  This whole process only took about 45 minutes or so which is much quicker than vacuuming it all or having to get it all off using rags!

I don't have any pictures of me doing any work, but I swear I helped!  For now, check out the pictures of Aaron demonstrating the air compressor!  Note his awesome protective eyewear!  :o)

 

After we used the air compressor, we took clean rags and wiped everything down.  The oils on our hands get onto the furniture when we are working on it and the sawdust gets stuck in the oils so blowing it off doesn't take care of the whole problem.  It only took us about 15 minutes to wipe everything down.  Next up - priming and painting!