Thwarted at every turn

Today I had big ambitions. Go ahead, since no clients have called, and plan on gettin' dirty. Sand down the countertop and try again, work on the TV console that we'll be putting in our room, and see if the chest/vanity we just bought on Craigslist will need a stripper (chemical, not a pole-dancer), or just sanding to get rid of the gosh-awful crackle-two-toned-yellow-crap paint job on it. Plenty to do!

After watching the news, horrified, and eerily creeped out, since HW was supposed to go to Aurora next week for work (that's where his company is based), and thanking God that that trip got canceled, I tried to shake it off and go work. After 30 minutes of sanding with 80 grit on the random orbit sander, I barely got the varnish off the countertop. I didn't want to create gulleys and swales on the top, so I stopped. Unfortunately, it did sand down to bare wood in areas. So now a new coat of stain and hoping that the bare wood areas blend well with the areas where the stain won't sand off. Thwarted.

HW and I had purchased an unfinished console for a TV that had no bottom (it was supposed to be a hutch-like device that sits on another piece of furniture, but we wanted it to have a bottom so it can be a free-hanging unit on our wall). We cut down another spare piece of wood we had, stained the whole thing, and thought it looked pretty snazzy. Then we put matching stained wood brackets on the back side so we can attach it to the wall. Unfortunately, neither of us had the foresight to put these brackets on before we assembled the whole thing, and the space around it to turn a screwdriver is about the size of Tinker Bell, so I had the bright idea to disassemble and install the brackets that way. Wood glue is a powerful thing. We had attached the bottom of the console with wood glue and screws (I didn't remember the wood glue part). I took out the screws and voila! the whole thing is still tight as anything and is NOT coming apart. Thwarted.

So I put the whole thing back together (or rather, just put the screws back in), and thought of another plan. We'll screw the screws in at an angle in the brackets, and countersink them, so they won't be seen when it's upside down and all the way in the back. So I filled in the old holes with wood putty (will have to stain those), and then started new screw holes at an angle. Just as I finished my first hole (did you know that fruitwood is HARD as a ROCK?), the stupid bit broke off in the wood! Thwarted.

So I puttied that hole, and started a new one, after using the needle-nose pliers and patience to get the old small piece of the bit out of the speed-fit drill contraption we have. With the new holes, I found if I leaned on the drill, and slowly let it eat through the wood, taking it out occasionally to literally clear the burned parts that had glued itself to the helix of the bit, I could finally drill those babies through. So then I GLUED the bracket to the console and clamped the crap out of it (hey, if I couldn't get the dang thing apart, maybe having some more in there will help us along?). But I couldn't put the screws in until the glue dried since I didn't have 4 hands and my clamps were good on downward pressure, but not on oblique pressure. Thwarted.

Close-up of the fabulous crackle

Then I decided to see if the awful finish on the soon-to-be vanity will sand off. There's real wood under there, and crackle finish naturally flakes off anyway, so I thought I'd try it. So I dragged the thing out to the driveway and managed, all on my own, to tip it over on its back so I could get to it (this thing is made out of real wood . . . not the lightest thing--and let me just say that under all this fat is a fairly strong woman). Then I started sanding. It was awesome! The paint was coming off nicely, I was switching out 80 grit paper regularly, and doing everything I could not to drip on the thing, all while wearing a mask so old-lady-smell didn't get lodged permanently in my lungs. I even stopped halfway through because I realized we didn't take pictures of this monstrosity before I started, and the ad on Craigslist is gone, so I don't have a pic of it fully assembled. But I've included what I could here:

The two chests that came with it.
The seller insisted we take ALL of the hideousness with us.
These things actually have THREE drawers, people!
And they're supposed to have glass tops! (The extra drawers on top are from the vanity.)

As you can see, the removal of the paint was revealing some quite pretty wood. The vanity will actually be quite nice when I'm done, don't you think? We're thinking about keeping the top two rows of drawers and only reconfiguring the bottom section. In the place of two drawers on the left, I would like to cut each drawer in half to make them smaller, and then double the depth of the remaining side. In other words, in the place of two drawers currently, I'll make one drawer the height of both, and then make two smaller drawers to fit the remaining openings. Without a drawing, this is difficult for me to describe, so just nod knowingly and give me a wan smile.

So, back to my thwarting story . . .

I'm happy sanding away, feeling like I'm making awesome progress; that I could probably get the whole top and both side sanded as well!  Then suddenly, the pad that holds the hook and loop sanding pad to the actual sander sheared off! It completely fell apart. One minute I'm sanding, and the next, it looks like the sanding paper came off, but it was actually the sanding paper, plus the apparatus it was attached to, which isn't supposed to shear off like that. I looked at it closely, and it had actually disintegrated. It looked like dry rot. So now I have to go to HD to see if I can find a replacement part for this thing. And if not, we'll have to order online and WAIT forever for the thing to get here so I can keep sanding. Thwarted.

This is beginning to feel a lot like Compton.

ps--I forgot to write this earlier--

while I was sanding the vanity there, I got to hear quite a loud and crunchy accident just up the street, out of sight on Six Forks. I didn't know what it was right away, but it was very crashy and I wondered if it was a car or something very big that fell somewhere (the neighbors have been felling trees recently). Then the EMS, firetruck AND ambulance showed up within minutes. Ick. What a weird day.