A day later than anticipated, but it's done!!! (for now...) I purchased this little tangerine chest/commode the other weekend at the Preservation Worcester yard sale for $30.
Adorable, no? I happen to like the tangeriney-orange aged paint on it (Hubby not so much) and I think the scale is perfect for our guest room.
I decided that before it made it into the house, it needed some minor work/refreshing. The top was pretty damaged- you could see ghosted newsprint among the other stains. Also, whoever painted it orange wasn't nice enough to remove the hardware first, so it was nice and caked onto the handles.
First order of duty was to use furniture stripper to take the paint off the top only. The wood underneath was beautiful with few blemishes, so I totally lucked out. This was only my second stripping project (my first was my dining table seen here), 
so I'm still figuring out the best way to do things. I used Strip-X Fast Furniture Stripper that was left over from my previous project and spread it onto the top with an old paint brush very carefully (so I got it ONLY on the top). After it set for about 15 minutes, I used a putty knife and scraped it off. I repeated this to get through all the orange. Once stripped, the top got a quick sand and wipe-down and dried overnight before I hit it with stain.
I had gotten Dark Walnut stain for another project, so I decided to give it a try on here. 4 coats of stain later, and I got it close to the desired color. That's also why this post is a day late. You have to wait ...........about ..............4 ............hours ...............between ................coats. I much prefer spray paint in that vein where you only have to wait minutes before the next coat. Or I should have just started with a darker stain. C'est la vie.
In Friday's teaser post, I mentioned using a crock pot. I even had Handy Dad stumped about that one until I revealed my plans. I found this article from This Old House detailing how to remove paint from hardware using a crock pot and I HAD to try it! I dusted off my crock pot, purchased Reynolds crock pot liners, and went to town. I 'cooked' the hardware in water with just a touch of laundry detergent (per This Old House's advice) for a just over a day. It would have been fine in 1/2 that time, I'm sure, but I didn't get to it sooner. All the hardware needed was a quick scrub with a toothbrush and the paint crumbled off. It was quite exciting (and messy, so be sure to cover your worksurface first) to see how easily it came off!
I then hit the hardware with a few coats of Valspar Brilliant Metal Silver spray paint. I was going for a more chrome look than it resulted in, but I don't hate it. It's shinier than your standard silver spray paint, so the contrast on the orange is quite nice (if I do say so myself). For future reference, though, do you know of any spray paint that comes out with a finish closer to chrome?
Here's what it looks like all finished. Not a dramatic change, but enough to freshen it up a bit.
Hubby's not currently a fan of the orange, but I'm hoping that it'll grow on him. If not, we'll repaint the orange parts sometime in the future. But I want to give it time to make him agree with me see how he feels.
What do you think of my refreshed tangerine chest?