Fixing an Old Project

Last year I bought this great side table at the Salvation Army for cheap that I intended to use in my office (see that post here). 

Original condition. It had significant water damage and lots of drawings on it.

Well, it never made it there-- I ended up painting it white and using it as a side table in my living room.

After the paint, before the poly

 At the same time I polyurthaned the top of my desk, I decided to poly the this table. Well, I don't know if I put on too much, or if this is just how poly works on white paint, but it turned it yellow. Yucky yellow that behaved very strangely with the sun. 

The yucky yellow, just after I started painting

Yucky yellow

Given my recent spat of painting things with my awesome $5 gallon of white paint, I decided I should sand down this table, and then repaint it with the bone white $5 paint. And I am SOOO glad I did! It looks so much better.

Another note-- While I was at Lowe's buying some more sandpaper (I've been using tons of it recently) (no, I don't have a mouse sander yet, I hope Santa is reading this!) I saw paintbrushes. And not just any paint brushes, but Purdy paint brushes. I have read about these on other blogs but their price scared me away a bit- I tend to buy many cheap brushes and just throw them away. I'm sure my projects have suffered as a result. Well, I decided to buy some Purdy brushes because they had a really good deal--a pack of three brushes- 1 inch, 1.5 inches and 2 inches for less than $20! If you were to buy them separately, just the 1 inch and 1.5 inch brush would have been more than what this pack of three was! I think it was a sign that I am meant to use these brushes. My overall impression is that they are excellent. Very good paint coverage and they cleaned easily. I also liked that the handle is wood. My old arthritic hands wouldn't mind thicker handles, but they'll live.

Ok, back to the point here. The table now looks awesome.

See! No more yellow!

The bad news is that I also used poly on my desk. And it turned the same yucky yellow. This weekend I am planning to sand that down and repaint. I haven't decided if I will repaint with the original color (called white mocha), since I only put poly on the top, or if I will go crazy and repaint the whole desk with bone white. I'm kind of torn--the bookcase in my bedroom is bone, but painting the whole desk is a big undertaking. Since the two pieces aren't next to each other, I can't imagine anyone will notice unless I tell them...

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