Twin beds part III: the finish. Or at least most of it.

Whelp, should have seen that coming. Who would have guessed, starting a new job and going to school meant there wasn't much project time around here for a while. But I managed to get some time this weekend, and I'm still not that much closer to getting anything finished. Turns out having someone else pick out the finish didn't save me any time on these. In fact, the girl picked a color I couldn't really find, so I had to get creative which even added some time.

And it's not like they picked crazy colors either. The boy went with red, and the girl just wanted pink. Plain pink. Apparently not a lot of paint companies have a plain pink furniture paint, but fortunately getting red for the boy meant I could use some white I already had and hopefully make a pink she found acceptable. That sounded a lot more acceptable to ME vs paying three times for pink matte than I paid for red glossy.

And whew! The red we went with is REALLY RED. Like, fire engine red. It works for the boy, since he wants pokemon sheets (ugh) to go with it.

Since I had white in the same paint type already, I hoped I could mix them and get an acceptable pink. What's more, I wanted to make enough that I didn't run out in the middle of the bed and have to try and mix more.

You know what would be good for a project like this? Those old folgers coffee cans that every dad seemed to have in his garage when I was a kid. I don't have any of those, but I do have some empty espresso cans around so that will have to do. It made me feel super-yuppie but gave things a lovely coffee smell.

Time to mad science some pink.

The blog motto: "Hey, that's not terrible."

Thankfully it worked. And something I learned: adding an extra complementary color can tone down the color you've created by mixing two other colors. The first mix was way too hot pink. I dropped a splash of blue in to make it a little more eyeball friendly, it worked great.

That is definitely pink

I've gotten the boy's bed entirely painted and polyed, and I'm trying to find the time to finish the girl's bed by next weekend so they can use them. It sounds like they already have mattresses ready to go, I just need to get them both completely finished before I break them down and take them over.

I also have some initials I was going to put on the headboard, but they might have to wait at this point. I'm writing this as a break from the actual paper I'm writing tonite; it's only an 8-10 pager, but I already cranked out a 5 pager last night and I admit, I'm starting to feel a little stressed about it. The longer one isn't due for a week but based on this week, I'm not going to have a lot of Mon-Fri time to get it done by midnight next Sunday, so here I sit for a while longer.

Hmmmmm. Not a bad start I guess.

There seems to be a little bit of self-doubt creeping into these titles lately. Titles are important, maybe I should spend a little more thought on them.

My doctorate classes started last and I'm still interviewing, but I sneaked some time to get some paint on the bigger of the two canvases. I'm not quite sure about the results. I had been sketching on my surface to come up with some ideas, and I thought I had hit upon a color scheme and layout I really liked.

One of many digital sketches before putting paint to canvas.

However, getting it on canvas wasn't quite matching up.

I like it better here, actually. It's growing on me.

Actually, doing this made me realize even more the positives I get out of painting. The only picture I took until I was done with the first draft of the painting was the one of my supplies ready to go, including my DIY plastic and plywood palet:

Each time I had a chance to paint I would think "okay, don't forget to get a few progress pic." And then I promptly forgot each time. When I was painting, painting was the only thing on my mind. Looking back on it, that's pretty amazing. I clearly need to paint more.

I really like specific portions of this painting though, this is one.

Both for my sanity, and the quality of my work. I'm still working on this one though. I feel like there's something salvageable somewhere on this canvas, I just have to find it.

media stand part 4: paint and stain

So there was a preview of this step in the table saw post, but things are starting to come together with the media stand and it's about time to start working on the finish.

With most of the individual pieces together, I thought I would try to stain/paint them individually before assembling them into a completed stand. I wanted to avoid any difficulties around the joints by having everything a uniform color before putting it together.

At least the pieces still fit on the bench and I'm not stooping all day.

Worked well enough with the middle shelf. Doing that and the inside shelves separately meant they looked pretty good put back together. I did see some sanding patterns from using the hand sander that I'll need to clean up before I stain the outside, but I had to wait on that while I finished the dowel joints keeping the shelf to the sides.

Boy I wish I knew what I was doing sometimes.

 

While I waited, I got a quick coat of the metallic paint I'll be using for the bottom on some brackets I had picked up just in case. That way they'll blend in better than they would as plain silver. The T's will be on the back anyway but hopefully this means I'll be able to walk by and never notice them.

Painting the bottom was a little rougher. It's a big enough part that I didn't want to spray paint at night with the garage door closed, but also big enough that one can isn't quite getting me the coverage I was looking for, so right now it's waiting until I get another can. It'll get done. Eventually.Thankfully, I'm happy with the finish thus far and at least putting stain on didn't make any mistakes more visible. Maybe this will come together after all.

Lacquer in the front

But only with the windows open.

The second coat of crib paint was looking good enough for me, so I attached some cleats and got ready to bust out the lacquer. The cleats got an extra coat of paint as well, just to give them one more thing attaching them to the crib in the hopes they're strong enough to hold a desktop. I think they'll be fine.

ComEd had turned the power off. Thank goodness for battery tools.

The lacquer also turned out fine, once I got used to the fumes. It took hours for them to die down, making me slightly hesitant to add another coat, which I think it could use, but I guess there's not rush. It's going to be a while before I have time to get boards to finish, so I have to sit around staring at a half-finished project until I somehow find an extra hour in the day.

Shiny. Hopefully kid-damage-resistant as well.

Which is a shame, b/c resurfacing the crib has gone well enough that I'm tempted to try it on our ikea chair in the basement to punch it up a little, but have no idea when I'd ever have time to get that done. Just another idea to let simmer for a while.

Second coat does the job

I'll admit to having some doubts about going with the cheaper rust-oleum paint vs something more expensive after getting a first coat on the crib. Thankfully a second coat helped even things out and things look a lot better now.

Feeling better about choosing the $7 paint instead of the $32 paint.

Even, consistent color after a second coat.

Still an obvious re-paint job, but definitely suitable for sealing. So if it stays warm this weekend I'll open up the garage and see how the clear lacquer looks out of the spray can. And there's always poly I can brush on if necessary. I can't wait to get some boards and put a desktop together!

Getting your feet wet

Priming the crib ended up helping with the final quality of my re-paint job, but getting the feet done was a little trickier. I ended up with a solution that took some of the difficulty out of it.

There was a lot of crouching and bending to get that paint on, and at some point I realized I still wasn't doing a great job. The feet had to come off to get their own coats. So I drilled four holes in a piece of scrap, screwed the feet in, and viola; four feet I could put anywhere to prime and paint.

Spray paint counts as primer if it's white.

That worked great for a least priming; paint was a different story. They weren't looking too hot with the big brush, so they got taken off and touched up with a smaller brush to get the details.

The kids were painting too this weekend, which gave me the idea.

I know the feet on a project like this aren't overly important. No one's going to be on their hands and knees to look at the tiny details but I'm anal. If I do something I like to do it well, and that kind of OCD is rearing it's ugly head during this project specifically for whatever reason. It'll help it look better in the long run at least.

furniture painting

Next up for the crib desk is paint. I was pretty dubious about this stage, since finish is pretty critical to getting these projects a thumbs up from the rest of the house, and there are plenty of tutorials out there about what can go wrong while re-painting furniture. And with one coat on things don't look perfect, but overall I'm pretty pleased with things thus far.

Hey, that looks really good in the can at least.

Whew. Not bad on the crib either.

Rust-oleum has a nice shade of royal blue in their latex, and at $7 it seems like a good start. I know, going cheap usually isn't a good way to guarantee a successful project but hopefully the early effort to sand and prime pays off by saving me some cash here. Working with latex was a learning experience; some spots went really well and look good right away, some look pretty shoddy and will obviously need more care in later coats.

That doesn't look too bad!

That, however, does.

I'm thinking at least three coats, so hopefully I can get one on over the weekend and another next week when I go in late. As long as I still have time to put together the wife's valentine's day card, which I was going to do today but the afternoon kind of got away from me...either way, that's got to get done in the next day or two. Then, a few days for a lacquer coat and we'll be ready to pick some boards and put a desktop together. Always looking forward to more woodworking.