{DIY} Lowboy Dresser

I thought it took me a long time to finish the tall boy, but doing the lowboy only took a month less to do.

Here's a reminder of what the tall boy looks like now:

And here's the lowboy while it was in the basement guest room:

If you look at the first picture, you might notice that the mirror frame and dresser are different colours. That's because my dad made the frame for the mirror and attached it himself. I guess that's where I inherited my curiosity for DIYs eh?

Here's my dad removing the mirror so that I could paint the dresser.

After 3-4 coats of Swan Wing by Behr,  here's the lowboy!

I actually used a roller for two of the larger drawers because the brush kept getting too streaky and I didn't want 6 layers of paint on it. I used a paint brush for the rest of the lowboy so in person, if you look closely, it's a little mismatched but it doesn't bother me too much (at the moment).

I wanted to use Floetrol for the dressers so that the paint would be more fluid and less likely to be streaky, but this one man at Home Depot told me not to and has since given me bad advice another two times! Because I regretted not getting Floetrol the first time, I didn't listen to him the other two times though. I really should learn to find someone else, but it seems like every time I go to that location, he's the only one around the paint department!

The lowboy is shinier than the tall boy because I used a small foam brush to cover it in 2 thin coats of Minwax polycrylic but since it dries so fast, it's a bit streaky on top as well. Again, this doesn't bother me so much right now as it's only noticeable in certain angles of light.

What DOES bother me is the little fibres and dust particles that landed while the paint and polycrylic were drying, but I'll live with it since I'm not going to ruin it by trying to sand out those bits. I already accidentally scraped off a bit of paint trying to get one little fibre off and painting over it looked worse.

I used the same black spray paint as well, but it came out a lot grittier. It's supposed to be satin, but it seems more matte. Maybe I just didn't shake the can enough?

Two dressers done and one more to go (my old one which will go into the guest room), but I'm going to apply some polycrylic to the tall boy as well. I've been too scared to put anything on top of it. I put a vase on it for one day and I felt like it was starting to damage the paint so I've only been putting light things on it. I'll probably add another coat on the top of the lowboy while I'm at it too, just to get 'er all done at once.

Now that I've finally painted this, I can finally organize my closets again. They're a bit chaotic at the moment...

Linked to: Primitive & Proper

{At Home} So Close, Yet Sofa

So we had scheduled the sofa to be delivered on the 6th and it was.

We unwrapped the plastic and found this beauty:

A nice big rip on the bottom of the sofa.  *womp womp*

Ignore the drawers in the back. I'm so close to finishing up painting my dresser and just bought a foam roller for a final coat since it was still really streaky after 4 coats with a brush, but progress has stalled once again.

The tear was the length of my hand!
 

And not only was there a rip, but two of the four legs didn't fit properly. The holes for the screws didn't line up properly, so we called customer service and were basically told to wait for a callback to determine when they would drop off a new one and pick this one up.

So in the meantime we put the recliner together.

They finally dropped off the new sofa and took the reject on the 15th and so now it sits in the middle of the foyer until we have time to put it all together. I'm surprised it took another 8 days to get a new one though considering the saleslady said we could've gotten the original order in 2 days since black is always in stock.

Hopefully it's okay!

{At Home} No More Saggy Seating

Last summer I went around to a few stores with my parents in search of a new couch for the family room as the current one has been with us since about 1990? It's not too saggy or uncomfortable, but it sure is ugly to look at nowadays. We didn't find anything we loved and after sitting in so many in such a short period of time, they all felt the same so we took a break from shopping.

This past weekend my mom and I went out to look again and we ended up at the Sears furniture store since my mom really liked the quality of the leather we saw the last time we were there. After maybe 2.5 hours of hemming and hawing, we put our order in for Italsofa's Aquila sofa and reclining chair!

 We're getting the black three seater sofa. There are no good pictures of this couch online so I had to take a picture of the information card the saleslady gave me. I love the legs!

 I also took a photo of the photo I took on my phone (I don't know how to transfer photos to my computer lol). We really liked the high back and it's a recliner! Hopefully it's sturdy.

It's going to be delivered June 6th so we're going to be shifting couches around in the meantime. The current family room sofa and loveseat will go in the basement (although I don't think both will fit) and then the couch in the TV room in the basement will hit the curb!

I was originally against this couch because it seems a little to modern for our house, but my mom is thinking that it will eventually move with them when my parents downsize so it's a good size. Plus, it'll give me the kick-start I've been waiting for to finally tear down the wallpaper and chair rail we've had for as long as we've had the couches! I've probably wanted to repaint the room since the wallpaper went up! Gotta love 90's decor...

I don't tidy up for "before" photos lol. Makes the "after" more dramatic, hopefully!

I  am getting ahead of myself though. Even though the sofa and chair are coming next week, I have to paint a dresser before I even start thinking about touching the family room!

{DIY} Tall Boy

Over the years I have accumulated a lot of clothes. In university I used two of these drawers for anything that wasn't hung in the closet (like hoodies, long sleeve shirts, jeans, etc) but I slowly outgrew those.

We had an extra tall boy in the guest room so I decided to take it since I like the colonial style of it. I didn't get a before photo of it but it basically looked like the one below. (My parents have 2 tall boys and 2 low boys, all with different hardware but essentially the same style! I don't know why they were purchased so sporadically in the 70's.)

I don't like painting over wood if it doesn't need to be, but with 4 different furniture finishes in my room, I wanted to coordinate the colours a little better. I spent a lot of time debating between painting it black or white, but I finally decided to paint it white with black hardware.

I only painted the exterior and left the interior wood untouched. Don't mind the mess. I was painting while the hardwood floor installation was happening.

The second coat of four coats of paint.

It's hard to see but the left side is more white while the right side is slightly yellow. Yah... next time I'll have to remember to stir the paint better.

I used an old ramen box to hold the hardware so that I could spray them with Krylon's Black paint in satin finish.

Didn't spray it so evenly... 

There's a little ding near the top in the middle. My dad flipped the hardware over too soon (it had cured for 24hours at this point) and the paint stuck so I had to spray them again and I let them cure for a week instead!

My set up to ensure the handles were sprayed evenly when hung upside down. It was so awkward when people walked past on the sidewalk lol.

Finished product!

Next up, I was planning on painting the extra low boy that replaced the tall boy in the guestroom, but it took me months (May to August) just to finish the tall boy! So this got pushed aside for this coming summer, though now with the condo I don't know if it will fit so I'm not sure if I should bother painting it. I probably will and I'll probably remove the mirror that my dad added and hang it separately.

I used a paintbrush to paint the tall boy, but I'm planning on using a small foam roller for the low boy since I couldn't get much coverage with the paintbrush. Still undecided though.