Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Making Some Progress

Since I got my 1950's cabinet nearly two weeks ago, I have spent every weekday sanding. Granted I don't spend ALL day sanding it sometimes felt like it. Today I FINALLY finished sanding. It is a very happy day!
Anyway, I started using these sanding sponges. They are really handy, but not what I needed for this job. I had 60 years worth of lacquer and varnish to power through and there is only so much my hands, arms, and back can take!
At first I thought that I was doing really well and had done enough sanding. I waited until Glenn came home from work and he advised me that I still had a ways to go. Bummer!

Here you can see the difference between sanded enough (left) and not enough (right). This hand sanding business was not fun.
I know that there is no way I ever would have come close to finishing it if we didn't pick up a power sander. That was my first power tool! YAY! I feel like a big girl now :o)
I was making an absolute mess with the power sander. The little dust collector thing in the back is a joke. It doesn't work at all. I knew I had to do something to contain my mess at least a little bit so I created a sanding fort in the kitchen with some sheets. I was pretty proud of it.
Since I was also tired of inhaling dust and was too silly to pick up a face mask when we were at ACE buying my power sander, I made a makeshift mask out of a gym towel and some hair clips. How do you like that MacGyver action?
Despite my awesome sanding fort, I still got dust everywhere. Check out this awesome mess next to the stove and refrigerator. It took me FOREVER to clean everything up when I was done!
Finally it was time to put the power sander away and get at all the detailing by hand. I used the lowest number grit I had (50) and went at it. Unfortunately I don't have any gloves and after an hour or so I noticed my fingers were getting torn up. It was gross but not really painful. The next day I came up with the brilliant idea of putting band-aids on my fingers. It was perfect!
Here is my beauty, naked for all to see. It's amazing what sanding can do. I am so excited to start priming and painting it now! In case you forgot what it originally looked like, the original untouched cabinet picture is below.

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