Every Summer Blockbuster needs a villain.
Thor has Loki. Optimus Prime has Megatron. Mufasa/Simba have Scar and I had a dresser.
This is our absolute true story.
I decided a few months ago that I wanted Preston and Jaxton to share a room. The way that the rooms were spread out was just a mess. Preston and Jaxton were sleeping in the Queen sized bed in Jimmys room but Jaxton's clothes were in the room Lucas was sleeping in and Preston's clothes were in the room we had made his own room until he decided sleeping with Jaxton in a big bed was the way to go. I just wanted everyone sleeping in the same room as their clothes. So the plan was to move the Queen bed into the Mario room where Lucas's crib was and to make that Preston and Jaxton's room and then move Lucas out of that room completely and into his own room. I knew in order for this to happen I was going to need a bigger dresser then the small 6 drawer one that was in there. What can I say, them boys have a lot of clothes. I had a picture in my mind of how I wanted the end product of the room to be and that meant them having a red dresser. The easiest way to do this would be to find an old dresser and paint it. I saw it taking maybe a weekend to to if I took my time.
Almost 1 month later it's finally done.
I searched at about 4 different Goodwills & DI to find an old dresser I could use but nothing was turning up so I ended up buying one from a girl off Facebook. It had a big mirror you can attach to the back but my boys aren't into mirrors so that's in the garage for now.
The top of the dresser wasn't too bad looking and I thought if I just oiled it up then maybe it would be good enough. This was my first mistake. Once the top was oiled I realized it wasn't going to work and I was going to need to sand it. So I got out some sandpaper. Yeah. Sanding that whole thing by hand was not happening. Especially since the oil on the top was now stuck like glue.
Off to Lowes we went.
This was the first of many MANY trips.
And the solution to this particular problem came in the form of a Skil Sander. I love it. Makes me feel like an adult to own my own power tool.
Only problem was the glue like oil was clumping up on the sandpaper and keeping it from doing its job of sanding.
So off to Lowes we went.
We bought some Stripper formula to take all the oil and old paint off. The instructions say to leave it on at least 15 min and then take it off. Well. I left it on overnight. In my mind this is fine. And it probably would be if it wasn't summer in Arizona. That stuff dried and dried HARD. It would not come off, even when we scraped it with a metal brush.
But lucky for me I now owned a sander & with a little elbow grease it took it off.
This is the part when I would like to once again bring up the fact it was July in Arizona. I was only be able to work on the dresser for about 30 minutes at a time before drowning in my own sweat.
Finally it was time to do some painting. The fun part. Or at least funner then stripping, and sanding.
And I remembered I had a whole Gallon of Primer in the garage from a previous project I did.
Only it wasn't there.
So off to Lowes we went to buy Primer.
Bought it along with some red paint so that I could just get this show on the road and get this all painted.
Priming went fine. Thinking that there was very little damage they could do I let the boys help prime. And they did great!
Painting time! I painted one drawer and let it dry overnight to make sure it was the right color. It wasn't. The color I had selected was too coral/pink looking. Not right for a Mario room.
So off to Lowes we went.
And we got a different brand/different color. I think the official name is Gumball red. Not much more to that part of the story except the part where the paint lady gave us a discount on the paint and the guy checking us out wouldn't honor it unless he could talk to her and he couldn't get a hold of her (really how many Star's are there working at Lowes?!)
Went home with the new paint, repainted and it was PERFECT red.
Painted my heart out and then noticed that on the top of the dresser where the boys had painted primer there were a few bubbles where Primer had dripped and dried. Stuff like that just bugs me so I knew I had to get those bumps off.
One thing led to another and then this happened...
Only this is before I had to remove the bumps on the left side.
It was like peeling skin from a sunburn. Once you start you cant stop. I should have stopped. But I didn't. Therefore I had to re sand the top of the dresser, re prime it & re paint it red.
UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
But then that part was over and I could start working on painting the sides of the drawers!
I found the idea on Pinterest and made it my own to go along with the Mario room. I figured that if the boys left their drawers open, which boys tend to do that at least they would match the scenery.
This part was pretty easy and not too bad. Minor problems like Jaxton helping by painting black stripes on one when I wasn't looking.
Painting done and now for the knobs. In the picture I had in my mind of how I wanted the dresser to look I wanted star knobs. Turns out star knobs are about $3.99 each & I needed 11. Not happening. So I decided just solid white ones would be fine.
So off to Lowes we went. Or rather off to Lowes Patrick went.
When he brought them home I started opening them up and putting them on when after about 7 knobs I realized "hey, these are all different sizes" and I was correct. All 11 knobs were suppose to be 1 1/2'' (that's the bin they were in) but some were 1.25, others 1.3 and some 1.
So off to Lowes I went.
And when I got back there and found the correct size they had 10 of the right size and I needed 11.
Is this real life?
Yes.
I made an executive decision right then and there that the top small drawers would have smaller knobs and the bigger drawers would have bigger ones. Problem solved. Except not because when I went up to exchange them at Customer Service they had an issue because the lady who had rung up the 11 wrong sized knobs had just scanned 1 and entered in the quantity, not checking them and so when I went to return the smaller ones they cashier I was working with didn't want to exchange them since they "were a different size then the ones on the reciept." YES. I KNOW! Thats why I'm returning them! They are the wrong size!
We got on the same page and I got what I needed and that was that.
Oh dresser...You are my Mt. Everest. I will be victorious!
And I was.
After I moved that sucker upstairs.
By myself.
FYI there are 18 stairs in our house.
Including the stairs that Jaxton was throwing blankets and pillows onto as I was trying to bring that monster up.
But we did it!
I felt like Rocky.
AAAADRIANNNN!!!!
And now the boys room is complete. It's the coolest room around. A lot of the decorations are things that were around from when we first assembled the room 5 years ago, but some are new!
Look at that beautiful dresser.
Isn't she glorious?!
The toy box is new and the paintings new, along with the gold coins- that keep falling down & being collected by Jaxton.
The framed drawings Rox did for us years ago, but the big P & J I put together.
Such a relief to have it all done!
Now to start working on Lucas's room....
Lucky for me he already has a dresser!
