Okay, look, just two more photos...

Because I put stuff on top of them!

And doesn't my handbag hang so nicely off the handles?

Et...voila!

(Note the blue paint still on the legs: testament to my shabbiness.)

Progress

Blogging about this chest of drawers is as painful as the process of "doing them up" has been. I've used inverted commas so you know I'm not trying to overstate what has essentially been a slapdash job. Slapdash: c'est moi! For example, I decided not to try to get rid of paint that most people would never know was there.

Those drawers had become a physical manifestation of a mental block. Just knowing they were sitting up in the shed was enough to stop me from doing anything else but, of course, not enough to get me up into the shed working on them. With the deadline of our holiday looming, I decided they just had to be finished.

I took a day off on Thursday and got them sanded and stained: at Bunnings I found Wattyl's Stain and Varnish - a two in one miracle cure. What really sold me was the line: "for jobs that need to be finished in a day". I mean, really, wattyl they think of next?

When I got the paint off the drawers I found marks where old handles had been removed and white residue that I couldn't shift. A bit of stain & varnish covers a multitude of sins.

A gecko had decided that these drawers were home and he resisted any moves to relocate him (I called him Darryl). This afternoon when I went out to put the handles on the drawers, he was gone. I hope he's found a nice new nest.

Now, while I wait for the drill to charge, I'm heading off to the shops to buy nibblies for tonight's quiz night. When I come back, the handles go on....

My New Project (or, Well Begun is Half Done)

In August 2004 Bloody Ern and Bezley were wondering what to do with a chest of drawers that had belonged to my Aunty Tilly. I said I'd take them. They were covered in a thick coat of bright blue paint but the wood was solid and the shape of them was nice and simple. I decided I'd do them up so they were transferred to our shed where they sat and waited doing up. And waited.


The waiting was interrupted by intermittent threats from Grumpy that those drawers had to go. This was my last chance. I mean it! This is it!


So over the Easter break in 2005 I bought some paint stripper and started to strip the paint from the drawers. For some reason the weather was a bit warm and muggy that Easter and it didn't take me long to lose heart. More waiting. More threats. More pointed comments about running out of room in the shed.


Finally, a couple of weeks ago, it all got too much and I decided Something Had to Be Done. I got Grumpy to help me move the drawers from along the back wall and prepared to attack them with vim and vigour.


Funny how when you come back to something it doesn't seem so bad this time round. I've got all the paint off that will come off with the paint stripper. Now I just have to clean them, apply sanding sealer, sand, clean, seal, sand and then stain. And then stick some handles on. It all seems so simple. I'm even beginning to dream that they'll be finished and sitting in the spare room before we head off on hols at the beginning of September.


Well, a girl can dream.