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DRESSER

2 October 2016, 10:29

I’m in pain, sweaty and wondering if I tracked dog poopy all over the house.

So. I bought a dresser from a coworker. And at this point, we are going to start enumerating my errors with numbers/degrees-of-severity.10/Bad, bad, bad… I bought a dresser from a coworker, never seeing it in person, for $60. Yes. That one to the left. Pictures don’t do it justice. It was a piece of crap. I overpaid BIG time. There were pieces broken, pieces loose, pieces that weren’t original (you know how you hammer a block of wood to a dress so it will sit level? you don’t? do tell…) After I saw it, I had immediate buyer’s remorse, but, you know, it was a coworker and a friend and I have tough time saying no if I’m not clearly in the right. soooooo….

I took it home. And the Dougie yammering started on how I made a bad error. When I man who paid 450 dollars to craigslist mechanics (UP FRONT) to fix his car, only to have it worse off than when he started, tells you what a crappy deal you made, it just makes me want him more.

1235560/Colossally bad, bad, bad…I decided to refinish it, and make it better. Nevermind that I have never in my life done anything like this. Nevermind the fact that I have never successfully put together that screw-by-numbers furniture that you get at Office Max. Nevermind I am a klutz, and once accidentally screwed a table to the floor. I saw how to do it on the internet, so therefore, I CAN DO THIS.

Sigh. I had Monday off because they make me take vacation, so I said, WHAT THE HELL. I don’t have a wood shop or garage or area that’s not cover with dog poop to do this, but that didn’t stop me. The dresser is 41×16×30 inches and covered in a thick coating of stain and varnish done by someone with apparently the same DIY skills as I so it was going to be… a challenge.

I googled a little on doing furniture, but instructions/warnings weren’t in Buzzfeed list form so I said screw that after the first paragraph and tottled off to Walmart for paint and assistance. Since Dougie said I could just sand it and paint it, I went and got 5 sheets of sand paper and…. uh… two cans of paint.

I sat on the front porch and started to sand. Sanding sucks. Sanding is mess and horrible and dirty and hard. It took me about 15 minutes to sand this drawer. And I had five of them to do. All this done with out beer or hard drugs. I ran out of sand paper. So TRIP NUMBER DOS to Walmart. This time I sat there and thought, maybe I need more than two cans of paint. I bought two more cans of paint and some more sand paper. I got done with the first drawer and decided to paint it to see if I could complete this and it would turn out half way decent. 4/Slightly Novice Mistake…I turned it on its side in the yard and sprayed. Not only did I engulf and drown in a cloud of sea foam green paint, I had laid it on its side in some dog doody. So. I stopped, cleaned off the drawer, found a spot that was mostly doody-free, and started again. I laid it on its side and sprayed closer to the drawer and covered it with paint. I just wanted to do the front first, since you SEE the front.

I went back, drank some pop, and sanded a bunch more.

I came back with other drawers to paint, only to find a waterfall of dried drips heading toward the earth, and apparently the dog had peed on the drawer. And this is vital to know, I had no drugs or alcohol. That sucked. More cleaning, a futile punishing of a 80 lb dog who couldn’t give a rats ass and a logistics correction. Plus. I sat the drawer on their butts to paint the fronts. That made for a clean smooth surface. SUCCESS. I’ll do the insides and sides with whatever paint I had left over. The drawer took three cans of paint, two packages of sandpaper, nails and Gorilla to fix them, three trips to Walmart and 4 hours total to do. I think it would have taken half that, had I had a belt sander and skill.

I dragged the main part of the dresser outside, sanded and sprayed the top, and went to bed.

That day, I had drank me some 5-hour energy meth, did treadmill for three miles, and then another two miles was spent mowing the lawn. The go-go juice fooled me into thinking I could do it all. Four hours of sanding. Painting. Mowing. Evil Exercise. I am WONDER WOMAN. I am a GODDESS. I am XENA, WARRIOR PRINCESS.

I am a stupid, stupid woman.

I woke the next morning unable to move. Nevermind the searing pain I had in my shoulders, arms, back, thighs, legs and feet. The slightest jostle made me a whimpering, paralyzed, moribund old lady who just wanted to die. I crawled to the bathroom, and gobbled down 6 ibuprofen and just sat in the dog’s stinkified chair for about an hour, hoping for someone else to come by and volunteer to finish the dresser.

So. I looked at the main body of the dresser, and found out there was some scroll work on the bottom, thereby would be resisting sanding of any sort. There was much rejoicing. I would need something to eat through all that. I googled and discovered I should get deglosser. Actually, I should get deglosser in the begining to do the whole thing because the internet made it look like a much easier process, smearing this goop all over the dresser and just wiping off the shit. I went to Wally-world again to get deglosser, gloves and whatever acutrimon I needed. And I got more paint. And some different color paint. We’ll make the thing sea foam and white. And knobs. I got knobs.

I’m into the dresser now, for about three times of what it’s worth. It’s a quest now, just to finish the fucking thing.

5/Could have been smarter…As I said, I have no workshop or garage or good area to work on this thing, so I put it against the house, and poured this crap on it. Whoops. In reading the can after I poured it on there, its like this toxic varnish/paint remover – I need special alcohol to wash it off with, and some hazmat license to dispose of everything. BUT. I soldiered on. I figured to get most of all the varnish/stain off and sand it down a little, since I had to – a bug had landed on it during the night and is now stuck to the top of it. I’m slopping this goop all over it and dogs are running around, kicking up sand, wanting to eat the drippy goop. I’m cussing at everybody, throwing things, waving my green gloved goop hands in the air. I finally just locked everybody in the house and trowling goop all over the place. It’s in the grass, on the building, on me. Just everywhere. I doused everything with rubbing alcohol, the only alcohol I had, and washed everything within an inch of its life. I didn’t know how do deal with the crap on the ground so, like a giant cat turd, I just buried it.

So dresser is prepped for a couple coats of paint. I searched the yard for a non-contaminated place to set all this up. Turns out, these dogs poop everywhere but where I’d like them to – away from the fucking house. I set up the dresser a clear spot and gave the bottom and top somepaint after sanding it down a bit. But therre was this smell. This really evil smell. Looking at my shoes, I conjectured I might have stepped in something. Nothing. So I walked around the dresser body and painted. Then I saw it. A big pile of green doody with bits of rice in it that Dougie had cooked for the dogs. I sorta went to the zoo at that point. I was exhausted and didn’t want to lug the damn thing around the yard again, so I just painted the poop and went on painting the frame.

That fucker’s drying. Onto the drawers. I lightly sprayed the insides, sanded the tops and put on the hardware. Just dandy. Fits kind of funny, but with a hammer and kitchen knife I got them to fit real good. I stared at the dresser that was almost dry, trying to picture it two colors. Or white with green drawers. Or green with white drawers. Or me on an island and servants, with no dresser because I don’t need clothes. I’ll just have to tape off and cover the top and bottom.

And then a funny thought hit me. With what tape? DAMN. I had figured that I was not leaving the house again till Tuesday, so I didn’t particularly keep the outside portion of myself in a presentational state. Plus, moving about was pretty painful. DAMN. I sat there for a while, not thinking at all and playing with the paint on my hand. I got an idea. 8/Jesus, you ARE lazy… I went into the kitchen and got the rice Dougie cooked, and took kernals of it and smooshed in on the dresser and stuck the old shower curtain with the froggies on it to mask the areas to be left white. While it wasn’t the PERFECT solution, it, indeed was a solution. I sprayed it. I sanded it and put it together. It doesn’t have the best paint job, and it was a crap dresser to begin with, but I learned a lot. It needs sanding here and there, and some touch up work which I’ll never get around to doing, so I am probably just going to face the bad sides to the wall. Next time, I’ll know what shit I need to get together and I’ll make sure I have a place that is doody free to do this.

I think I could do it again though.