Minocqua for Labor Day

Dan and I spent a nice little weekend in Minocqua, WI for Labor Day. We attended a fabulous wedding and then explored the town the next day. In the morning, we grabbed some donuts from Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty!

We found record heaven in Gaslight Antiques. You can sort of see the red and white Hawaiian print dress (made in Hawaii!) that I bought, too. It's a little big, but I'm going to take it in.

I have never seen records like these before. I wish they all were like this:

Red Dresser Project

One of my favorite blogs is Little Green Notebook. The woman behind it is an interior designer and, in the true crafter spirit, shares her ideas and projects regularly. I can't tell you how many of her blog posts are starred in my Google Reader to come back to when I'm ready for a new project. One that I had to tackle right away, however, was this one of hers: Office Redo. I loved the idea of transforming an old piece of furniture into something super sharp and modern for not a lot of money.

This is the Craigslist photo of the dresser I found.

Close-up of the hardware.

I picked up the same color spray paint as LGN, Safety Red. She also suggested purchasing a nozzle attachment for the can. This totally saved my hand. I made the mistake of not priming the dresser, which made the project take a lot longer and used a lot more paint. Lesson learned for next time.

After removing all of the hardware (12 drawers is a lot!) the dresser got about 4 cans-worth of spray paint. I noticed some bubbling on top so I did some sanding and spraying. There is still a little, but it's not noticeable.When I was satisfied with the red, I applied a coat of Wipe-On Poly. You can find this at any hardware or craft store. It's just like it sounds - take a rag and wipe this stuff on. When it's fully dry it's really nice and glossy. A little goes a long way.