Live and Learn

Things I will never say again: "I'll just remove the top half. It will be easy!" Ummm... No! This is one of my flaws. Sometimes I get over confident in my skills.  That's what happened with this piece here.

This chest is part of a King size bedroom suit that I purchased off Craigslist. The first thing I notice after getting it home is how cute it would look as a small chest. My eyes gravitated to the bottom half. I'm not a big fan of the tall chest of drawers anyway. So what do I do?

Bring it inside. After driving across the planet to purchase the set from a weirdo and unloading it by myself in the 100 degree weather into my garage, I decided if I'm going to try and rip the thing apart, it's going to be in the AC. The next thing I notice is the piece (actually the entire set) is covered in veneer. Great! So I immediately realize that not only am I going to have to remove the top portion but I'll also be removing the veneer from the top of the bottom portion that I'm going to jack up by removing the top portion. Sounds like a big fat DON'T DO IT warning, right? No, not to me. Full steam ahead.

I should have taken pictures of my living room after all was said and done. It looked like a tornado had hit a small home and it landed on my living room floor. Wood chips were everywhere! I didn't take a picture. It was about 3am. I was delirious and determined to finish. Here is a picture of me attempting to remove the veneer from one of the drawers from another piece in the set. My living room looked like this x 1000. 

I got my "small chest" like I wanted, but sadly the top was pretty destroyed in the process. A lot of wood filler and sanding later, here she is. You can see from the glare in the picture the marks it left on the top. Luckily, the dark paint color choice covered A LOT! Chalk paint is a no brainer when painting over veneer. If you are unfamiliar with veneer, it's basically a really thin layer of wood glued on top of wood. But, it's super hard to penetrate and "strip" and prep enough to paint with other types of paint. Chalk paint adheres to nearly any surface and requires zero prep work. Easy Choice.  I used 2 coats of Annie Sloan graphite (3 coats on top - I was trying to cover its boo boos). Then, I broke out a bird stencil so I could add some pale yellow. Lot's of distressing later, here she is:

I happen to love her. And the top doesn't bother me a bit. I love a distressed look and the top just adds character. But to others, her top may be a deal breaker. Ah well. Live and learn right?