The Almost Fail

After two coats of primer ....




The more primer I used, the more bleed-through of stain even on the parts that had been sanded down to bare wood! The stain even made my brush turn pink so that I had to clean it before re-dipping into the white primer.

I tried mixing the primer with a bit of the very light gray latex I was going to use as the color. Those photos were after that coat which was the third coat.

Hand wringing and tears did not help. A trip to the new Lowe's Hardware store in town did not help. They couldn't understand how the stain was bleeding through. They were incredulous that even the brush was turning pink. I don't think they believed me. They sent me away without answers.

Fail fail fail. Total fail. Dead end. Fail. Who wants to sew? Nora's throne was trash. What had I done to it? Lots of self-recrimination ensued. Why couldn't I have been happy to keep it in the original condition? Why did I sand so much? My first attempt to refinish furniture and my hopes to paint other things, dashed. Dumb dumb dumber.

Days went by. A couple of weeks. I wasn't even tempted by online fabric store advertisements in my inbox. Not.even.tempted! Maybe I should just give up SEWING for heavens sake. I can't even put a coat of paint on wood, much less aspire to sew a coat! Oh, I can do pit-of-despair very well. And I was dancing this tune to perfection!

Nora (the real one, my daughter) came home Labor Day weekend with a new beau. At one point I opened my garage door to show him my failure. He made a simple suggestion. Oil based paint.

Oil.based.paint? What was there to loose. Up to Lowe's I trudged (should have transferred my allegiance to Home Depot after the last Lowe's debacle but this new Lowe's is just too convenient). I brought a lock of Nora's hair (the piece of metal covering the light switch) to match colors - thinking to scratch the gray and go with pink because if the oil.based.paint bleeds (and I knew it would because everything else did), the red stain wouldn't be so obvious. Maybe.

Finding a color match took all of 30 seconds. A Lowe's guy helped me find the paint and gave me some painting with oil.based.paint tips (he sold me a roller instead of a brush). Lowe's redemption.

The oil.based.paint went on with perfection. No bleeding whatsoever.

I do hope Nora keeps the guy. I wonder if he knows how to fix drains.