Making a Bar: Part 1

Hello again,

Apologies for the break in broadcasting.  My best friend Q was in town and we did a big project that took over the quilt making time.  So rather than the usual, here is the project we worked on in two parts.

I recently found out I didn't get an apartment I wanted that was much bigger than mine, so Q kindly decided to help me start fixing my house to make me feel better about this.  And now, I have plans! Lots and lots of plans. :)

Step 1: replace my weird kitchen cart in the corner of the living room with a functional bar that I can really use.  And Q had an awesome idea - take the icky dresser I got for free that is not really being used in the bedroom and turn it into a bar.  Brilliant!  And, because the universe smiled on me, it fit perfectly - like 1/32 of an inch perfectly.

Only problem?  It looked like this:

Yeah, the starfish and pale blue do not work in my living room.  Also, those handles slide back into the dresser really easily and that is frustrating. 

So Q had the awesome idea of stripping and painting this thing a color that I would love and making it a bar.  Brilliant, obviously!

While she was visiting, she decided to start stripping it.  Now, we didn't actually realize this thing was not going to be easy. It was made of laminate and had been painted with one of those special, unpleasant primers that makes paint stick to laminate.  Yeah, it looked simple to strip in the beginning:

So.... Apparently laminate with primer on it is made of evil. Pure, un-remediated evil.  Q started the stripping while I was at work around 2 in the afternoon.  She was still going when I got home at 6 and started to help. 

Now, Q knows what she's doing.  Since I had two dogs in the house, we were using the indoor-safe primer, but she's used it many times before.  Our supplies were:

Really - it didn't look like it was going to a combined 14 hours of labor to strip!  It really, really didn't.

Finally, we got it stripped after delivered pizza and a fair amount of beer...

Yeah, it looks awful, doesn't it? And there were places where we just couldn't scrape the paint off, so we had to do way more sanding than expected. Those little curves on the drawers? They make it really pretty, but they are also annoying as all get out to strip and sand.
 

However, with more beer and more pizza, we got it all ready to be primed and it started to look like a real piece of furniture finally!

Now isn't that prettier?

Once it was all primed and looking like a real piece of furniture again, we took a night off and played video games....

Hooray for high scores in all the version of Pac Man and Qix and Space Invaders and Galaga.  That's right... We are video game queens! :)  (If you live in DC, the bar that has all of these is the Board Room on Connecticut, by the way. It's awesome!)

Part Two coming up, where we have some problems with paint, color confusion, and a beautiful finished product!

Till next time,  
A