Lacquer and Dijon Mustard
This weekend seemed spent almost entirely outside. Leon and I used the bulk of our time to refinish one of our dressers to match our bed frame. We stripped the wood, used steel wool on it, cleaned it with alcohol, and stained it with three coats. It still needs a coat of lacquer and its hardware replaced, but the project feels pretty much complete.
Unfortunately, even with the three coats of stain, it still looks nothing like the color on the can of stain--that is, the color of our bed. We even added "ebony" to our primary color "red oak" to make it darker and the effects were barely noticeable. I think Leon is pretty disappointed that we spent most of our weekend making our dresser look almost identical to the way it looked at the beginning of the weekend.
I'm not entirely pleased myself, but the wood has a reddish tinge to it now and looks richer and a bit darker. It certainly won't be a dead-on match but it's an improvement. Still, I will not be at all surprised if we do nothing but change out the hardware on the other dresser. It's a lot of work for a subtle tinge of red.
I'll post before and after pictures when we put on the gloss so you can see what I mean.
The other event that got me into the great outdoors was a barbecue, organized by Ryan. It was insanely impressive how he remembered everything. There were two kinds of bratwursts, hamburgers (which he spiced and made on location), salmon, corn on the cob, chips and salsa, fruit salad, three kinds of beer, and soda. That's not including all of his little tools. It was amazing and the food was delicious. I'm not excited about weighing in tomorrow morning, though.
Anyway, here are the men around the grill. Don't those cheeseburgers look fabulous?
Unfortunately, even with the three coats of stain, it still looks nothing like the color on the can of stain--that is, the color of our bed. We even added "ebony" to our primary color "red oak" to make it darker and the effects were barely noticeable. I think Leon is pretty disappointed that we spent most of our weekend making our dresser look almost identical to the way it looked at the beginning of the weekend.
I'm not entirely pleased myself, but the wood has a reddish tinge to it now and looks richer and a bit darker. It certainly won't be a dead-on match but it's an improvement. Still, I will not be at all surprised if we do nothing but change out the hardware on the other dresser. It's a lot of work for a subtle tinge of red.
I'll post before and after pictures when we put on the gloss so you can see what I mean.
The other event that got me into the great outdoors was a barbecue, organized by Ryan. It was insanely impressive how he remembered everything. There were two kinds of bratwursts, hamburgers (which he spiced and made on location), salmon, corn on the cob, chips and salsa, fruit salad, three kinds of beer, and soda. That's not including all of his little tools. It was amazing and the food was delicious. I'm not excited about weighing in tomorrow morning, though.
Anyway, here are the men around the grill. Don't those cheeseburgers look fabulous?