Something Old Made New Again ~ Lucille

 A few months back, I mentioned that Mr. Thrifty and i had gone on an amazing thrifting adventure while we were in St. Petersburg, FL. We found so many amazing treasures, but the biggest and most amazing was this dresser that I will refer to as "Lucille" from now on. 
I know it seems a little silly to name furniture, but after I got done with my labor of love on her, she really needed a name. I named her after my darling Great Grandma Lucille. She always told me that junk had a purpose. She would save me all sort of bits and baubles and store them in the drawer of her dining room buffet. She and I always had the best time playing with the things she found for me. I have always wanted a buffet like hers and I was determined to find just the right one for just the right price.

While on our vacation, Mr. Thrifty and I stumbled into this strange, dirty used furniture store. It was not exactly the nicest place to say the least. I though for sure we would never find anything in there and would have to politely sneak out, until I caught sight of Lucille's hardware. She was buried under several junk items and I almost missed her. We started moving the things off of her and testing out her drawers and doors. She was beat up and had rough spots, but I fell in love. She had a sticker marked $50, but when we asked Abraham, the strange store's owner, he said he only wanted $30!! We squeezed her into my Chevy HHR and drove her home to Orlando.

Now I'd love to say that I got right to work on Lucille, but unfortunately she sat around for the last couple months collecting dust. I knew in my head that she needed to be yellow, so this weekend I set about to make her just like I dreamed she could be! 

We started by taking off her hardware. I loved the original hardware, so I saved money by not having to replace that. I also saved work by forcing my son to clean them up. :) He used a light sanding sponge to take the grime off and make them shiny again. I also took the doors off and the drawers out to make the sanding and painting easier. I also made my daughter clean the insides of the drawers. I wouldn't be a good mom if I didn't teach them some skills, right? :)

The next step was to sand her. The varnish on her was super shiny and would not let the new paint bond well, so I needed to sand off the sheen and I also tried to clean up some of the rough spots. I used a palm sander for most of the surfaces and had to hand sand some areas that I couldn't reach with the palm sander. I'm not going to lie, it was dirty, messy work, but it was nice to really work hard on something. It was while I was sanding that I realized that I didn't want to put the doors back on. I decided that I wanted to paint the inside cabinet in white and make it a display cabinet.

This was my first time using a paint sprayer and air compressor! It took me a little while, but I got the hang of it. I had the brilliant idea to paint the white inside the cabinet first. Unfortunately, that was a dumb idea! LOL I ended up having to build a "tape wall" to keep the yellow paint from spraying onto the white. OOPS! 

I then set out to turn her yellow. Because the original stain was so dark and she had several rough spots, we ended up having to give her 4 coats of paint (we used Sherwin Williams Latex Acrylic Enamel Semigloss in Daisy) in order to get the finish that we wanted, but the color was perfect!

Here she is all done!! We used a Glossy White oil based paint for the inside of the cabinet and its' shelf. Again, we put the original hardware back on and she was all done! 

This was my first big project like this. I am sore, tired, and have a cough from the sanding dust, but it was so worth it! Not only is she gorgeous, but I am so proud that I was able to do this with my family. We took something old, junky, and almost over looked and made her beautiful again. I'm sure the original Lucille would be proud. :)

I'm looking forward to sharing more projects with you all in the future!!


~peace, love, and cute shoes,
chrissy :)