It’s Not Easy Being “Green”

In one of my crazier Craigslist Hunter moments, I found a woman offering two free dressers located about a half hour away from where I work.  She had some very strict rules for pick up though.  You had to come that day, they would be outside at the end of her driveway and you had to move them yourself, with no help from her.  I emailed her immediately and sight unseen, headed out to her house on my hour-long lunch break to go get them.

I arrived at her house and quickly accessed the situation:

Great potential but how the heck was I going to get them into the station wagon and home by myself?   Did I mention that there was rain in the forecast for the afternoon/evening so leaving them outside in the elements was not an option?  Thankfully, I always keep some rope in my car for situations just like this.  I removed all of the drawers from both and put the frames into the car.  Then I put the drawers in wherever they would fit.  There was not enough space to close the station wagon’s back door, so with the rope I had, I tied it down and prayed that they would not fall out on the highway.   One frantic call to my husband Justin later, we decided the best thing for me to do would be to drive back to my work parking garage, remove one dresser frame so that I would be able to close and lock the station wagon and hide the dresser behind my car while I went back to work for the afternoon.  This way they would be protected from the rain storm that did eventually come through and I didn’t have to worry about draining the car battery by leaving the back door open.  For a pair of free dressers, they sure were causing me a fair amount of stress at this point.  Eventually they made it to my garage where the magic happens.

There were some fun details about these two guys that I was able to appreciate once I had gotten them home.  The little swirly design and all of the original wood handles were both exciting discoveries.

As with any piece of furniture I get, it goes through the Kate process:  wipe down and de-spider, sand them down, and evaluate for any necessary fixes (broken drawers, mold, etc.).  I knew pretty early on that I wanted to do these guys in green and also keep them “green” in the products I used to paint them.  I really love Valspar’s Low-Voc paint and decided to use that.

I knew that I also wanted them to have a very lux, high gloss finish to give them that fancy-pants look (and also complete wipe-ability should they end up nursery furniture in the land of messy moments).  To achieve that look, I opted for the semi-gloss Valspar paint and two very thin coats of water based polyurethane.

The final step was cute drawer liner paper.  This part was a disaster.  Seriously, it was!  Did you know how very few companies produce gorgeous liner paper that is available at regular retail stores?  Very few.  If you are out there and looking for a million dollar idea, you should go into designer draw liner.  I’d be customer #1.   I went to good, old Target and found this fun dot pattern (which kind of matches the top of this blog.  How is that for synergy!) In the future though, I’d really like to see more options commercially available.

A few tips from the dresser project:

• Remove the drawer pulls and stick them into a cardboard box with their screws.  This will enable you to paint them and let them dry without smudging the paint.
• Remove all of the drawers when you paint them.
• Try and paint in long and even brush strokes.  On bigger pieces (dressers & bookcases), it really does make a huge difference if you take your time and try to keep everything even and smooth.
• When it comes time to do the liner paper, go slow!  This is not a project to undertake if you are in a rush.  You want to avoid any air bubbles (something that I’ve got in a few of my drawers).

-Kate

If you want your home to have a special piece of green furniture, created with your needs in mind, contact me by email at RedefiningDecor[at]gmail.com for information.

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