Miss Grumpy Gills

Hey Mr. Grumpy Gills!

You talkin' to me?!

Usually, I am a little bit like Dory, in that I go off on tangents in the middle of sentences or forget what I was gonna say or can only remember things I've read, not heard, or tend to be pretty optimistic about life in general and always look for the best. But recently, instead of having a Dory-like positive demeanor, I have been a grump. Even things that never would bother me before are driving me crazy. WHAT IS GOING ON.

Yesterday at work, the grump must have been showing a little more than usual, since two customers at work complained about me, which has NEVER happened before. But recently it's been a little harder to be chipper and fawn over people I don't care about and show visible excitement about their fabric purchases or answer the same inane question for the millionth time with anything other than apathy.

When I was in New York, I was like "ooh yay, now I can let my guard down and let my inner mean girl come out so I can just ignore people and not have to go through the exhausting ritual of smiling at passers-by and constantly asking how people are." It was refreshing, and disturbing.

I think it's a combination of things: 

1) I don't have a job yet, and that's the biggest. I'm still trying and waiting and wishing and hoping and praying for a job, and it may be happening, but it's happening very slowly. 

2) The part-time job I do have is fun at times, but sometimes stressful and all the time not what I want to be doing. Not to mention it's a job I did 2 summers ago and working there now reminds me of that and I get this weird nostalgia for days that don't happen anymore. 

3) I am still/again trying to lose weight, and it's not fun and I'm sick of it and I just wanna eat what I wanna eat dangit! Ugh. 

4) Many of my friends are seriously dating someone, engaged, married, and having babies. I am, instead, single, lonely, jobless, homeless, and I can't even cuddle with my cat when I want to since she has to live elsewhere. 

5) With all of this no-job-ness, I also have no money, but I keep having to pay for things. It's a pain.

6) I feel like I am stuck in limbo and just waiting for my life to start. 6) I also have been staying up way too late watching the entire series of Scrubs. Oops.

So all of those combine to produce a perfect storm of grumpiness that feels like it came out of nowhere and I can't control. I know I've never been the most gentle of conversers, but I feel like I've always been nice and at least pleasant for the most part, but now it seems like too much of an effort to make that effort. Humph.

And I can't even eat a piece of chocolate or buy a pair of shoes to make me feel better about it. Bummer.

Pretty much. Unfortunately.

You decide

So fancy-like.

This is my latest project. It's a... desk? Chest of drawers? Dresser? Container for various items likely found in a bedroom and/or office? I dunno what it is. I prefer to call it an ugly duckling that turned into a dignified swan. Whatever it's called, it was my first foray into spray painting furniture, and let's just say I'm not convinced.

My bestie and I were garage sale shopping one Saturday morning after an early spin class and came across this beauty:

It looked even worse with an in-focus picture, I promise.

So after shelling out a whole $15, loaded her up in the car and took her home for some TLC.

Note the layer of disgusting on top... or all over.

After taking a (long) time to de-spider this beast with a wet rag and a rolled-up newspaper to swat the terrifying little critters and getting over my heebie-geebies, I primed 'er up with some rusty red spray paint primer.

They say red takes more spray paint to cover than anything else, so use a red primer. 

Let that dry for a little bit, then started putting on the layers of glossy cherry red spray paint.

But whoops... turns out one drop cloth isn't enough, not by far. Hello, overspray everywhere. No more evident than around the perimeter of the dropcloth. Not to mention the violently red bottoms of my once-white socks.

So before the next step, I had to scrub the garage floor with a mop to eliminate all the red overspray. Fortunately, the spray essentially coated the layer of dust and dirt on the garage floor, and not the floor itself, so it was pretty easy to clean up. Had to watch out for those wet footprints, though.

The whole time I was cleaning up, I was thinking "hmm, it's pretty tough to clean up a bunch of messy red stuff. And just when you think  you're done, more shows up. I bet it's really hard to clean up after a murder."

Just in case you're planning on murdering or slaughtering an animal or something in the future, it's probably really hard to clean up. Fair warning.

So the next layer(s), I took the time beforehand to protect my spraying area:

Take that, garage floor.

And a zillion layers later, I still didn't feel like the color was even enough or glossy enough. Then, it was really hot and humid outside, because it's like, Texas, in the summertime. But it was humid enough that it caused the paint to bubble up in several places.

At this point, I got angry at the project and abandoned it for a while. It also got really hot outside and I just didn't wanna.

However, I went back to it about a week later, recharged and excited to finish. I decided that instead of being sleek and chic, it would be distressed and chic, since that's easier to deal with and requires less perfection.

So I sanded down the bubbly spots to the wood underneath...

As you can see on the top right

And then used my fave antiquing glaze everywhere. To get all the detail, I was pretty heavy-handed with it, much more so than on my entertainment center. 

I even glazed the nifty desk part on the inside:

This is where the furniture becomes multi-purpose.

Then quickly spray painted the original gold handles a nice hammered brownysilvery color I had left over from another project.

And lined the inside of the drawers with antique-looking paper. For one, because it's cute, but also because the spray paint didn't cover the inside of the drawers very well and it needed to be helped a bit.

We fancy now, huh?

And with that, my new deskchestofdrawersdresservanitycabinetwhatever is done!

Ta-da!

Things I learned:

1. Always get rid of all spiders and spider webs before spray painting. They don't like it.

2. Always cover every surface with a drop cloth. I don't know who in the world has 25 feet of clear space in all directions to be able to do this with like one cloth, but I don't, so just cover yourself by covering the area.

3. Get enough spray paint to finish the inside of the drawers.

4. Do not spray paint in the summer in Texas.

5. Do not wear white socks while spray painting with red paint because you will look like a murderer. But don't be barefoot either, because then you'll look like a murderer for longer.

6. Spray paint does work wonderfully on handles.

7. I still love antiquing glaze.

Now, I am going to sell this ugly-duckling-turned-swan. Selling for $100 or best offer.

And now it's your turn to decide - is it a desk? a dresser? a chest of drawers? a hodgepodge of all three? a desker, perhaps? You decide.