Latex and Stripper

Recently, I've had the itch to paint.  I go through these phases every so often and when I do...watch out.  Dave just gets wide eyed, stands back and wonders why I "torture" myself.  It's not torture, it's therapy!  Cheap therapy at that.  He ought to be grateful.

When Dave's mom, Barbara, passed away, we inherited a couple of dressers that were old but still in great shape.  They are made of maple (no crappy press board here) and are made very well, they even have the "dove tail" joints on each drawer to make them stronger.  The only problem was that they stain was wearing and it was the wrong color.  So about ten years ago, I sanded and painted them an off white/cream color.  I loved that color but, time had done what time does and so it was time to re-do them.  Since I just painted our bedroom a soft yellow/cream color, I decided to do a soft gray on the dressers.  I'm not totally convinced that I love the color, so it might change again but here are the photos of the process.

The yellow on the walls

Testing shades of gray

In the middle of snorting sawdust

Finished color.  I'm going to "live with it" for a little while to decide if it stays.

Now here is where the STRIPPER comes in...

I also decided to change the color of our coffee table.  If you've been to our home over the last several years, you probably noticed the "conversation piece" that was our coffee table.  I had DECOUPAGED about 50 photos to the top of the table.  Note to self, don't do this again!  I had many people comment on how fun that table was and how neat it was to see all of the pictures of the kids as they grew up, but the time had come to repaint the table, and I couldn't do that without redoing the paint that was underneath and in between those pictures, which snowballed into scrapping the table, which required stripper, then more stripper, then scrapping, then sanding.  What a nightmare!!  Don't worry, I have copies of all the photos.

This is halfway through the process...

Waiting to use the "fine grade" sandpaper then paint

What would I do without my stripper?  It took 3 coats to break down the glue and photo paper!

I'm planning on painting the table black and then roughing up the edges.  Dave's not sold on the color but we'll see.  Now I'm off the garage...while he's at work!