I haven’t taken many pictures because I’m so sick of painting, and also because it looked almost embarrassingly bad when I started, but I’m making progress on Phase Two of the Great Office Furniture Reclamation. I ought to be…it took me all goddamned weekend. The worst is over, though; the desk and cabinet are basically done except for the clear coat, and the last cabinet is the small one that will be an actual printer cabinet.
I ended up practically dismantling the “printer cabinetâ€, and since the surfaces were so bad, I did a lot more sanding (read: I actually sanded) than I did with the desk. I may regret my lazy non-desk-sanding, but that’s for another time. Anyway, I sanded, primed and painted, and since I had leftovers from the “scrap†piece I got to cover the CRT knockout on my desk, I put beadboard paper on the back of the cabinet as well. I’d cut the piece of plywood the same size as the back panel, and actually had the Gorilla Glue on the back when I realised it needed to be 5/8†shorter to allow for the top to sit in place. Once I had it all in place and it had partially dried, I took off the clamps to test fit the top…which was then 1/8†too long on one side. Turns out you can cut ¼†plywood with a small snap-blade knife, if there’s no other way! I re-glued, caulked, and re-clamped, and left it overnight. I took off the clamps this morning, but didn’t have time to take a picture. The can of paint is there to push against the bottom of the back panel. I’d got a small sheet of silicone, but didn’t really have a use for it…until I needed something to put under the paint can that wouldn’t stick to the mostly-dry paint!
From our “just crazy enough that it might work†department…I decided to try to salvage the doors after all. I’d bought a board to make new ones, but then I had an idea. What if I belt-sanded the doors, then used a combination of drywall compound and oil-based primer to just make them smooth? I’m still not finished, but after two coats, they look pretty good, and it just might work after all. I should’ve primed right after sanding, but I didn’t, so there was some bleeding. Primer covered it, though. Anyway…
Left is fresh from a date with a belt sander and then a palm sander with 50-grit paper. Right is the way it came off the cabinet.
After the first coat of drywall compound.
