Failure.

Much as I love bragging about my latest "projects," I know when I've been bested. I will openly admit when even an inanimate object has triumphed over me. Most recently, it was in the form of a dresser. This dresser in fact.

You remember my nightstand project? I love those babies. They were exactly what I wanted. A tribute to my standing 15% success rate for the projects I undertake. After finishing TWO of those pieces, I thought I was a pro.

My next project was to tackle this little number that was dominating Kate & Brooklyn's room.
(I know it's a mess but I wanted to capture it in all its realistic glory. Specifically, this is how it looked on a regular daily basis. A catch-all for random clutter and an unfinished back wall while I tried to decide how to handle it. Lovely, right?)
I built this piece of work about a year ago, inspired by this nursery piece from Pottery Barn.

Not the same, right? Yeah, I know. (Chalk that one up to my 85% Project Failure Rate)
It was time to take action.

With Travis's help (i.e. manly brute strength) I demolished the top half and then got rid of the two little dressers below. I then procured a new dresser (the dark brown beast you saw above) for a mere $15! I sanded and painted it the same as with the nightstands. No pictures of that part, but this was the reason behind the Great Paint Catastrophe. I've been kind of clumsy lately, so when that paint bucket slipped from my hand in slow motion and crashed to the carpeted floor, I probably should have taken the hint and quit while I was ahead.

First off, the antiquing. It did not go as smoothly as described in Step 4 of the nightstand project. White furniture is not the same as blue. And I will probably never try that with stain again. I believe you are supposed to use a glaze. Stain is too dramatic and unforgiving. Hm a little like my daughters. Just kidding. If you notice on the finished project, the bottom right drawer doesn't match (it was my practice drawer). And, I'm not too worried about it. (It looks worse in photos than in real life.)

After I gave up on that part (I'm pretty good at settling for mediocrity lately), I addressed the drawers. They were sticking and squeaky and hard to use, so I planned to replace the old splintered wooden runners with side-edge metal rollers like one of my nightstands uses. I found them at my newest favorite hardware store and set to work. Here were the problems:

1) The drawers + runners ended up being just barely too wide to fit in the spaces. No worries - I just whipped out my jigsaw and started hacking into the front edges. Does that sound like probably a bad decision to you? Yeah well it was.
(Um... yeah.)

2) After the dresser front was sufficiently masticated by my first-time jigsaw skills ("How hard can it be?") I realized that the supports in the back of the dresser were too wide to attach the runners. I would have to cut into each support on the back of the dresser too, which by the way cannot be done with a jigsaw (though believe me, I tried).

I worked on this for a full morning, AFTER the dresser had taken up residence in our front room for a week, sawdust at all, only cutting my thumb once, and finally I was done. No, not done with the project, done trying. I officially gave up. I hammered the old supports back into place as best I could and re-fit the now crooked drawers into place. Luckily the drawer fronts cover up most of the damage. Then I hauled it into the girls' room and filled it with clothes. Oh yeah and I painted the space on the wall pink. As Kate would say, "DONE AND DONE."
And there it sits until I solve the drawer runner problem. Which will probably not be in the near future. Sometimes giving up is an acceptable solution.

Chalk it up to my 85% Project Failure Rate.