What I'm Making: My first official furniture redo!

So I officially can't stand it.  I haven't blogged in over 3 weeks while settling into our new, beautiful home.  Uverse is supposed to be coming out next week to install after originally telling D it wouldn't be until JULY 21st!! So in the meantime, I've surmounted a pile of unfortunate circumstances: (1) Again, no cable or Internet; (2) No working AC [another lovely discovery right when the previous owner was moving out & we were moving in but should be taken care of in the next week or so]; (3) D is out of town on a family vacation until Sunday :(  ; and (D) the absolute cherry on the top of the Crappy Week Cake...my blackberry's track ball is stuck which is preventing me from using most of my apps including Twitter and Facebook [now I have my eye on the new EVO 3D phone].  I feel so lonely and disconnected from the virtual world, unable to blog and tag and IM at my leisure so I've resorted to doing ancient activities, almost unheard of nowadays, like... reading a book!!! One with actual paper pages, and all.  Over the weekend, I read The Reader by Bernhard Schlink which makes me want to rent the movie starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes.   Now I'm on to Night by Elie Wiesel.  Don't ask me why I'm on a WWII/Holocaust era kick but I find the time period fascinatingly bizarre, heart wrenching and dark yet the eyewitnesses and storytellers still retain their humanity.  Night is a short, not necessarily easy, read.  I should be done with it tonight. 

On Sunday, I decided to finally put my money where my mouth is and redo the vanity desk I bought nearly a year ago and was determined to transform.   I was driving down College and at around 30th St. I saw a woman having a yard sale.  And this little gem is what I ended up with:

I have to admit, I walked into this project and, more specifically, Menards rather sheepishly.  I had done a bit of research online and read through the many furniture transformation and home decor blogs.  I felt like I had a grasp of what I needed to do and what tools I needed to buy but once the sliding doors opened up, my anxiety hit the roof.  I eventually made my way over to the back corner of the store and into the sand paper aisle.  I bought a variation of sand paper and sponge-like sanders.  Then I looked at stain stripper.  I decided to choose a brand I was familiar with, Zinsser.  I went back and forth between the rub on and the spray on.  I think next time I'm going to go with the spray.  Stain stripper is a nasty, nasty thing.  I wasn't using my head when I thought I could use cheap, kitchen gloves.  That stuff ate through to my skin immediately.  Luckily, my neighbor had some chemical resistant gloves.

I also grabbed a small tub of vinyl wood filler which serves as a putty to patch the holes.

I had to have a sales associate help me select an slightly off white paint and primer, of which I went with a Rustoleum brand.  Upon a second trip to Menards, I grabbed rollers which made paint application so much easier.  I eventually settled on some hardware that I was okay with because, apparently, 2.5" is not a popular size for drawer-pull hardware.  I didn't feel like spackling up the original holes and remeasuring out new ones so I just went with one of few options that were cheap, black, and 2.5".

Once the table was completely stripped of the original cherry stain (a long, tedious process), it was ready to be patched, sanded and primed. 

Now, I have to be honest, I got lazy about the whole sanding process since I would have to do it by hand.  I eventually want to buy an electric sander.  Once the wood putty dried I tried to sand it down to be flush with the top surface of the table but as you can see, it didn't work out too well.  It doesn't really bother me.  Next, I applied a layer of primer to all surfaces and the insides of the drawers.  I used brushes for the primer layer which took forever and hurt my wrists (total weenie). 

The following day, I tackled the painting.  I used a combo of rollers and small brushes to apply to layers of paint.  I used a large fan to help things move along.  They dried very quickly and smoothly creating a final product I was very happy with.

I stood marveling it for several minutes and, of course, sent a copy of it to D.  I was originally planning to put it in the entry hallway by the front door but it was a little bigger than I thought so I put it near the half-wall that separates the living and dining/sunroom.  Now I just need to find the right stuff to accessorize!

It's amazing what people can do when they tune out, turn off and disconnect from their normal, everyday lives.  I can't wait to tackle the end tables I just bought from my new neighbor who is moving to AZ in the next few weeks.  She even threw in a can of dark stain that she just never got around to doing.