Slow boat to China...

I thought I would tackle painting the drawer faces today, so that I had a clear accomplishment to put in my back pocket.  Yeah, uhm, seriously, I have decided that the dresser has taken offense at my man-handling of it.  Would you believe that 1) clearly whoever painted it pink put the knobs on whilst the paint was still wet and 2) there were bits of scotch tape on several of the drawer faces???  In short, removing the scotch tape took approximately 30 minutes, primarily because I forgot to turn around the blade in my razor blade holder (the grip end of a razor blade will not remove tape), and I had to get out my rubber mallet and whack away at the knobs once they were unscrewed to get them off of the drawers.

We won't discuss just how many times these drawers have gone up and down the basement stairs, but we can admire how nice they look now that they are lightly sanded and properly primed.  The paint Marie bought is a paint & primer mix, but that pink stuff was so weird that I felt rather strongly that I should break open my bonding primer and slap on a coat before commencing with the GREEN paint.

I watched one episode of Zen whilst priming and another whilst painting the first coat, which is very wet in the above photo.  The color is not really representative of its true nature, but perhaps if you concentrated on the drawer on the far left and thought deeper, richer, more olivish thoughts, you might know what they look like.

In between painting the primer and the first coat of paint, I tackled the rest of the prep work for the dresser.  After painting the first coat, I very deliberately washed the brush so that I would not be so hasty in painting the second coat.  I can be a very, very, very impatient painter.

I carried the dresser from the back porch to the back sidewalk, as opposed to trying to get it back down to the basement.  There, I stained it.  After many hours, I moved it to the garage to finish drying, since I did not want to leave it outside overnight.  I think, perhaps, it shall remain in the garage until Marie fetches it since I am sure to be in significant trouble for having moved it all over the place by myself.

Stain.  Well.  Will Marie like it???  I worry about that ... quite a bit.  I mean, maybe she would have been perfectly happy with a painted dresser.  She could have primed and painted over the pink, since it was not all that thickly painted.  However, painted dressers scratch on top.  They just do.  And, to me, once the attempt to scrape the paint off failed miserably, sanding down to paint again is just plain silly.

The thing is ... the wood.  It is two types and not that great quality.  So, will the end result be pleasing??  To me, I really like the idea of The Painted Drawer Dresser, though I would go frou-frou on the knobs.  Marie is being all design sensible.  But will she like it???  Of course, the good thing is that all someone has to do to wipe out all my feeble labors is to prime and paint the rest of it.

I think the part that is bothering me the most is the facing.  I am not sure, but I think those strips of wood are end edges rather than top grain.  By that I mean, they were impossible to scrape, sand, and stain.  SIGH.

Still, with a second coat tomorrow and some orange oil to treat the wood, Marie will actually be able to have a dresser when she arrives home.  I just don't want her to be lying in bed, unable to sleep, because I managed to ruin her free dresser.  After all, my vision for how things should be is clearly in the minority ... oft a minority of just one.

The back porch.  SIGH.  I have limited myself to just one hour a day of sitting on the back porch and sanding.  The progress—or lack thereof—makes me feel like I am on a slow boat to China.  I had hoped to be done by July, but I am not so sure that can happen.

I wanted so badly to finish that section between the two doors, but all I managed to do was to get about 2/3rd of the way there.  Granted, this is the very worst part of the back porch, but there are still more boards in poor shape to come.  I predict that tomorrow's sanding will only net me finishing that patch in front of the door to the kitchen.

I thought I would note that my Easter Lilies decided to finally make their appearance.  Well, some are still thinking about blooming, but I now have this splash of color.  I sort of wish the day lilies bloomed early so they could all color my yard together, but I still have just buds on the day lilies.

Finally, because I am an odd sort of gal, I thought I would add this photo I took of my shadow last night.

That's my night shadow whilst taking night photos.  Like this one.  Of the tree.  The tree I pruned, though Firewood Man is not going to believe me.

I pruned it at about 3:00 in the morning when Amos decided he needed to go outdoors.  He took so long to execute his need that I got out the pruning sheers and brought the bottom of the magnolia tree back up to the height of the fence.

Interestingly enough, after wee-hours-of-the-night-pruning, I did not have any further nightmares.