Matt got a free chest-cabinet thing while helping some people move in our ward, and we thought that with a little love and, perhaps even inexperienced, care it could look nice in our house.
So we got our first dip into "refinishing" furniture. I say "refinishing" because we didn't end up refinishing it after stripping it down. It just wasn't nice enough wood, but with a little paint it looks nice enough for us.
We stripped off the children's stickers and old thick layers of ugly paint (it took a few coats and two different types of stripper to get it off). The spray on stripper wasn't near as effective as the paint on stripper. (How old am I that I keep smiling the more times I write stripper?) (Matt says 12.) We also had to scrub and scrape and sand like crazy to get it smooth. As most first time projects end up being, it cost a lot more than free; but at least we have the pleasure of knowing we did it ourselves.
And Matt got a new sander out of the deal.
So this is the finished product, minus the hinges, but who needs those? It's the perfect spot--covering our carpet stains from our rotten pumpkins. Merry Christmas.
