Tuesday, June 8, 2010

un Petit Projet

Hello Everyone!

We kind of took a break from house scraping for the past few days. The weather has not been our friend. It's been either too hot and muggy (mid 90s are high for Kansas this time of year) or too wet.

Even though the scraping was neglected we did finish un petit projet so we could say we got something done.

Do you remember this little cabinet, the one that was partially completed?

We decided to finish it.












Even though it was hot outside it wasn't too bad in the shade and there was a breeze once in while.

Besides, we didn't want to get all the sanding dust in the house!

So there it lies - in all it's pieces.

The sanding didn't take all that long - maybe 4 hours. What took the most time was the staining and finishing.

It was so hot, and kind of steamy, that it took a lot longer for the stain to dry. After this came the tinted shellac. Another problem we had was that one of the big drawers, and the top, did not handle the shellac well and they had to be re-done.

Once the shellac was dry one coat of polyurethane was applied. Since the cabinet is going to be in the kitchen we thought the extra protection of the poly would be a good idea. The bad part is that it took almost 3 times the amount of time to dry.

Once dried I lightly sanded the top and prepped it for the last coat of poly. This coat had to sit for 24 hours; so, as of 6PM our time I was able to attach the top.

And here is the finished project.

Not too bad...

There are some spots where we were not able to get some stains out as well as 'something else' we can't identify. All-n-all though it looks good.

While working on the cabinet outside we did have a visitor.

Mr. Toad.

SWMBO said we should have stuck a fist next to Mr. Toad because the picture doesn't do him justice. This guy is almost as wide as a soft ball.

Not sure where he lives, but it's somewhere around the back patio.

Well, till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~

2 comments:

Kate H. said...

Would it be absurd of me to say I have a dresser very similar to yours, except mine has a single drawer at the top and wooden knobs instead of crystal? Got it at a junk/antique shop in Lawrence just as I was graduating from college. Maybe it's a classic Kansas style.

Larry said...

It would not surprise me if it was a classic Kansas style.

To be honest we have no idea what the original handles were. We used some extra glass handle we had on hand.