The Mom Life: Transforming a Goodwill Dresser Part 1

After tackling my bathroom and the hall closet, it was time to move onto bigger things. Remember the dresser I found at Goodwill for $30? I took the drawers out of it and moved it onto the patio. I slid some newspapers underneath it and grabbed my can of spray paint and started spraying.

With the first spray, I was bummed. The color that came out was a lot darker than the color of the cap. It was supposed to be a pretty blue-green sea color. What came out was a dark blue. And it was taking quite a few passes before any of the color seemed to stick. I kept going because I didn’t want to go back out or stop mid-project. (Hah, wait and see how that worked out for me. ::rolls eyes::) It’s not that it was an ugly color, but I just didn’t see how well it was going to work in a little girl’s light purple room without being too overwhelmingly dark. But hey, I could make this work….right?

So using the phrase “first coat” loosely, I had a first coat of paint on the dresser. The only reason I didn’t make it a real coat? Oh yea, the can was empty. ::smacks forehead:: Then I ask myself why I didn’t think to buy at least 2 cans of paint. With no answer to give myself, I get Thing 2’s crocs on her, put the dog in the crate, get my shoes back on, grab my purse and head back to Lowe’s for the second time that day. And on the way, it starts raining! Aaahhh!! My freshly painted dresser is on my patio that gets wet in the rain!!! Seriously, I just laughed. And kept driving. At Lowe’s I bought 2 cans of what I thought was the same color. (Are you starting to get the feeling that this is a day of misadventures???)

Back home, I let the dog out, get Thing 2 back in her spot so she can watch me paint her dresser (and I can keep an eye on her), grab a can of paint and head back out onto the patio. (Luckily, it hadn’t rained over the apartment…just on the road to the store that is 5 minutes away. Go figure.) With the sky ever darkening and the wind picking up, I unlock the cap and start spraying.

And. My. Heart. Drops.

The color that is now a big splotch on the side of the dresser is the pretty blue-green sea color of the cap and NOT the dark blue color that came out of the first can. So very many thoughts race through my head at this point but I land with the idea of making it a two-toned dresser.

After making strategic sprays, I brought Thing 2 out to get her opinion….this is her dresser after all.

She loved it. J I may have sweetened the deal by telling her we could paint bugs on it. She does, after all, love bugs. Her eyes lit up even more. That’s all that matters, right? But wait, there’s more. Remember how I mentioned that darkening sky? It was still getting darker…and windier. After Thing 2 helped me unscrew the handles from the drawers, I hustled the semi-wet dresser into the kitchen to finish drying on the laminate floors as opposed to on the carpet anywhere else in this apartment. I brought out 2 drawers for painting. But they weren’t going to be a perfect match to the dresser because I didn’t have any more of that dark blue…how could I anyway since the can seems to have been a defective one anyway? But the impending rain made me forget about that after the first second and run with it.

After the first two were painted, I ran them inside (yep, still very very wet) and sat them up on top of the dresser for drying.

I ran the other 2 drawers out and painted those. I let them sit for a couple minutes and here came the rain. No joke. Barely 2 minutes after finishing spraying, the rains came – along with the thunder and the lightning. Gah! But where was I supposed to put them to dry?!? I had room on top of the dresser for one more drawer and ended up putting the last one in my bathroom. After gathering the newspapers off the patio and tossing them in the trash in my kitchen…while walking sideways…my feet sure seemed to be sticking to the floor. Yep, you guessed it. I had walked through lots of paint outside without even realizing it and now I’m leaving blue-green sea-colored footprints on the laminate in the kitchen. Despite the lightning and the thunder, I filled my tub up with an inch of warm soapy water and was able to get near abouts all of the paint off of my feet.

*Whew* Are you tired yet? I’m tired just telling the story. J

Then it was time to get Thing 1 from carpool. Later that night I had to move the dresser out of the kitchen so I put it in my room and put the drawers back in so that it can finish drying overnight.