We’ve been done with the tv stand for a couple weeks now, and this is way overdue so lets embark straight away shall we?
In the glowing afternoons of early fall I kept the work going. I sanded the cuss out of the old late 60s credenza. Checked it with Liz. Sanded one, maybe two more times. Wanted to make sure the thing was ready for primer. I didn’t really do a great job on the doors, but I was “over it.” Here I should also mention that I screwed up. Liz had wanted the doors unpainted and even told me not to sand them the day before I begun painting. Well, I sanded one and it was already too late. Shucks.
After the doors, I got tired of sanding and I just dove into painting. I pulled out the pint of Bear primer, the paint brush and went at it (seen left). Originally I had pulled some ‘uber’ primer from the shelf and the dude/man at ‘the Depot’ had said it was for professionals. I heeded his word and went with the less “everything will stick to it” option.
I think the rule for painting is top down, so you can make sure you get all the drips if they happen. As you can tell I went right in the face of that rule. My reasoning is if the primer wouldn’t hold I’d not have to sand a giant surface that I see all the time. Thus, I started with the feet. Usually when painting wood, you should be concerned with grain direction and all sorts of alignment with the brush or roller, but I knew there was going to be enough layers of paint to not sweat perfection.
It went well and the wood was soaking up a fair bit of the primer.For those with a keen eye, they may be able to see it in the photo. I also made sure to keep a wet rag nearby, in this case a wet shamWOW. Side note: for those who are thinking of buying a shamWOW set – don’t.
So I let the legs sit for an hour or so to let them dry. I came back and scratched at the now dry primer to see if it had indeed done well enough to attach itself to the wood. Luckily it had. That meat it was time to slap on the thick stark white muck with the rollers. So after the first coat those fancy fluffy rollers, that the guy at Home Depot had pushed us into, were now leaving lovely pink frills in their wake. Wonderful.
After some time talking about “well we could stand and touch paint” or “just leaving it” we decided on the latter as a course of action. I also came to the conclusion that “big-box” advice is not always correct. I went to work the next day and came back the the whole thing being done. Liz had put a second coat of primer, and two coats of the “Glass o’ Milk” paint color all over this big bastard. That was mighty nice of her.
We talked again of the now bigger bumps and grit that spotted themselves across our newly painted wood. Talking of sanding and repainting were tossed but ultimately we were done working on the damn thing. There it sat for the night, drying and mellowing under the orange glow of street lamp right outside the office window. Morning came and after breakfast the two of us moved everything in the living room around and stuck the beast in it’s place.
It was too early in the AM to go hammering away at the back panel so we went about watching TV and waiting for the sun to rise a bit farther in the sky – and more importantly people to wake up. Quick hammering and a 1″ & 1/2 new drill bit later, and I was ready to put the dvd player in.
We had to do was buy a set of those clear ‘feet guards’ to keep the wood floor from getting completely destroyed by the tiny wood nubs that it is supposed to sit on but that was it. Welcome new TV stand.
