(re)Finishing Furniture Fun!

I keep mentioning this furniture that we are going to refinish.  I've discussed picking out drawer pulls for the furniture with you...  I've even talked about getting a mattress set to go with that furniture...  However, I had yet to actually do anything with that furniture!

That has all changed!  The project is finally officially underway!  This weekend, Aaron and I (okay, so he did more work than me because I had to run out to get sized for my dress for Beth's wedding on Saturday and then had to do reading for school on Sunday; but still, I helped!) started the re-finishing project.  And, boy, is it (not) fun!  ;o)

Let me start by saying that I have failed to take a picture of all of the furniture prior to the start of the project; my "fail" is not because I didn't want to, but rather because it's all clustered together in my parents' garage and it was going to be a lot of work to get it spread out so you could see it all.  So I guess I just didn't want it bad enough!  Oh well!  You'll see pictures of each piece at some point - provided I don't forget to take any.  (Okay, so I guess I make no real promises!)

Let's start with some "Before" pictures of the nightstand:

 



As you can see, the furniture is a light tan color, which is apparently called "blond"!  The top, sides, shelf, and front of the drawer are covered with a thick lacquer finish.  The front and inner sides are just paint that matched the thick lacquer.  Also, note the original hardware which I will discuss a bit later!  As you can see, the top of the nightstand shows plenty of wear and some damage to the finish.

So, how goes the project?  Well, Aaron started with the first nightstand at about 12:30pm on Saturday afternoon.  I was running out to David's Bridal with Beth so Aaron got started by himself; my dad set him up with supplies for sanding it down.  When I got back, he had completed the front of the drawer and had some of the top done.  So, in about an hour, he didn't even have 20% of it done; at that rate, it would take us 5 hours to do a nightstand!  I was convinced that the sandpaper we were using was not coarse enough - it was 150 (medium grit).  Aaron was using a 1/2 sheet power sander, but it was still quite a slow go.  The old finish was very thick and it took forever to get off; unfortunately for us, everything we could find said we needed to get the finish off entirely and get it sanded down to bare wood or else the paint wouldn't stick (as I mentioned, the old finish was a lacquer finish, and lacquer does not allow paint to stick well). 

(Right: Aaron, hard at work getting the inside sanded down!)



By 2pm, we had the front of the drawer, the top, and a slight bit of one of the sides down.  My dad remembered his belt sander which was a big help; a few swipes of the belt sander took a good amount of finish off and exposed some bare wood.  We could then use the other sanders to finish up.  My dad also got out his 1/4 sheet power sander and his corner cut sander; they had rougher sand paper which helped and they were able to get into places the 1/2 sheet sander couldn't. 

(Left: Me, working on the inside; note my two-handed technique!)

 

 

 

It ended up taking until about 5:30pm (so about 5 hours), but we finished the first nightstand!!  We decided to come back on Sunday to work on the second one.  Unfortunately, I had a lot of schoolwork to do, so the second nightstand was entirely up to Aaron.  This time, though, he only got started around 1:30pm and was almost done by 4:30pm (only about 3 hours), when he got rained out.  Aaron got more comfortable with the belt sander and that definitely sped things up. The belt sander speeds things up, but it also leaves things rougher than the medium grit paper; it is too risky to use it for the whole job as it takes off layers quickly and we could end up gouging the wood, but is a great starting place.  Anyway, I was so surprised when I got went out to check on him after about an hour and a half and saw that he was about halfway done!  A much better pace than Saturday!  Sadly, rain ruined our parade and he had to quit early... The second nightstand just needs a bit more time to finish the edge on the front and to do the inner shelf and inner sides. 

 

(Right: The sanded nightstand stacked on top of the other one which we hadn't started yet!)

 

On Sunday, my dad started talking to us about the drawer pull issue.  There is one backplate missing on one side of one handle on one dresser drawer...  So, of all the original hardware, one tiny piece is missing and, because of that, I was looking for new hardware.  Moreover, the current hardware is a very dark metal (possibly pewter); it would not look right if it was placed on a black dresser and I was under the impression that it cannot be painted as it would wear off.  My dad found out about my concerns about painting it.  He told me that he could take them to work to glass bead blast them (like sand blasting, but with glass) to get the finish off the metal without harming the metal.  We can then paint them!  Apparently the paint should stick fine.  The only issue would be that, on the single drawer pulls, a small piece of paint may wear off where the pull hits the backplate; however, this is not a big deal as the pull will cover that spot anyway!  So the good news is that it looks like we can use the original hardware as well - it will require some work to get it ready but I'm excited to use the old hardware as it was one of my favorite things about the furniture when I first saw it!

So anyway, we still have the dresser and chest of drawers to do, both of which are considerably larger than the nightstands... So we're going to have lots more fun (read: work) ahead of us!  After all the sanding is over, we need to prime it and give it all several coats of paint...  An article I've been following says to do 2-3 coats of primer and about 5 coats of paint - all very thin coats.  With that said, I think it's safe to say you can expect some posts about the finished product in about, oh, two months! ;o)  Considering that closing is in 3 weeks, I may need to find a way to speed up the process though...  Wish me luck!