The Hay Bale Holder

Boy, wait until you see this one!  This past summer, DH and I were on our way to the Antique Power Tractor club’s annual event {yes, I agreed to go along as I was promised deep fried food} and on our way we passed by a seemingly large garage sale.

Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to miss out on a hidden gem, we stopped in.  We took a look around, but nothing really caught our eye.  That was until we went into the barn and saw something in the back!

I spotted a dresser that wasn’t even a part of the garage sale {it was in the back of the barn BEHIND the garage sale tables}.  It was topped with bales of hay and looked pretty worn, so I was hoping the owners would consider parting with it.

DH went over and asked if they would be willing to sell us the dresser.  I was just standing there, staring at it, crossing my fingers {and my toes} hoping they would let it go.

At first they did not want to – apparently it was where they were storing their gardening tools.  So, we continued on looking at the garage sale items expecting to leave empty handed.  However, as we headed back to our car, the lady came running over and asked if we would take it for $10.

Say, what?  All I could think was, “Is this real life?” {yes, I am quoting THAT video}  Yep, we got this puppy for 10 smackaroos.

This is the beauty as I spotted it:


It was very apparent how many years it had sat in the barn and how many layers of paint had been applied over those years.  It actually had a REAL crackle on the finish!


There were even games of tic-tac-toe played on the dresser:


All of a sudden, we had our plans for that weekend – to refinish this dresser!

The first step was to remove as many layers of paint as possible.  We knew we were going to paint the dresser in the end, but since it was already obvious how many layers of paint had been applied, we wanted to get it down to its bare bones and finish it off with the ONLY layer of paint it would then have.

After a quick shopping trip to Menards, we decided to go the paint stripper route.  We figured there was probably some lead based paint on the dresser somewhere so we didn’t want to sand and breathe in the dust.

 mixing and applying the first round

So maybe you are wondering, “Did it really STRIP FAST?"  You bet it did.  Once the stripper was on, the paint started to bubble within minutes and then we just scraped it off with a wood putty knife:

the paint bubbling away, just begging to be taken off

um, yeah, can you see how thick the paint was?

After we did a second round of stripper, we then used the stripper wash, and this is what we were left with:

We then sanded everything down, primed and painted.  Well, actually there was one more step that I took, just to be extra “Jen-like”.

You see, there were these beautifully ornate keyhole covers on each drawer.  I was hoping I could salvage them and not paint over them like the previous owners had.

carefully, I pried the keyhole covers off the dresser drawers

getting one more round of paint stripper

after the paint stripper and cleaner

As you can see, I did another round of paint stripper and cleaner on the keyhole covers.  I also refinished the dresser wheels you see sitting above the covers.

After the covers were cleaned up, I primed and spray painted away!  I used a bronze metallic spray paint that best matched the new knobs we bought for the dresser.

the finished keyhole covers

For the dresser, we used an off-white paint.  It was just a gallon of paint we had down in our basement, so we didn’t go out and buy any new paint for this project.

In the end, the dresser now sits in our living room and I use it to take pictures of my invitations and such.  It is my new photography dresser instead of a hay bale holder!

before

after

 

I absolutely LOVE my new dresser!

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