An ill-advised trash-picked painting project

Sometime this past semester, I was driving to school one day when I saw a little table out for trash pickup.

I was like, “Ohhh, hey, hey, hey, not on my watch!”, turned my van around, and picked it up.

It sat untouched for the rest of the semester, like most non-school things in my life. Ha.

It definitely needed a refinish because the previous paint job was dirty, but also sloppily done. 

So after I graduated, I started sanding it, and that’s where things went sideways. 

First of all, the paint seemed like some kind of latex wall paint, and it was getting gummy when I tried to sand it. Strike one.

Then, even worse, it started peeling up in spots, sort of like stretchy rubber cement. That left an uneven surface, which meant I was going to have to actually remove all the paint rather than just scuffing it up.

I scraped some of it off, but that was too laborious to do on the whole thing.

So I decided to use paint stripper, which is not my most favorite thing to do. 

This table had an unfortunate number of exposed surfaces that needed to be stripped, so it was not a quick task.

Finally, I could proceed with the priming and painting, which was honestly the easiest part.

And since I already have primer and paint here, this part cost me nothing out of pocket. 

Also, the nice thing about the priming and painting is that it can be done indoors with a drop cloth. That is way better than trying to work outside at this time of the year. 

And here’s what it looks like in the end:

Remember how I sorta regretted working on that free rain-damaged Ikea chair, just because it ended up being so much more time-consuming than I anticipated?

 

This table felt kinda like that.

But on the other hand, in both cases, I did save an item that someone else was just going to throw away. 

And I did end up with a nice-looking, useful item in both cases. 

Also: I worked on this table before taking my NCLEX, and I listened to NCLEX review lectures while working on it.

So the time I spent was not a waste.

In the end, it’s all good. Still, if I could go back, I’m not sure I would have trash-picked this particular item! 

P.S. I did finally finish the scuffed table too; look for it in a post soon. 🙂