The Story of the Poor Pink Desk

My husband went hunting this weekend, so I asked my mom to watch my two kids today for a couple of hours so I could concentrate while I used my new spray gun.  It is inevitable that they will start fighting, someone will get hurt, need a snack, you name it when I try to work on a project - all moms can relate, I'm sure!  :)  So I was painting a bunch of pieces pink!  I love pink stuff!  The first thing I worked on was this desk I found at my favorite thrift store a couple of weeks ago:

I set the desk on some planter boxes to raise it up off the ground a bit.  It wasn't very steady, but I was just so excited to get going, I left it teetering a bit on the planters and carried on.  I had finished painting the whole thing and was bent over working on the drawers that I had pulled out when, yep, I bumped the desk from behind and it fell flat on it's smooth, newly painted pink face!  Oh, for Pete's sake!  I tried to hurry and wipe off the disfigured part before it dried,  but in the process, I messed it up even more!  This is what the pink, sniff, desk looks like now:

Did I mention when the desk fell, the one drawer that I had left in split and later fell apart?

So, why the long story?  Well, it got me thinking about how we really can learn alot from our mistakes.   Sometimes it's the best way to learn.  Now, the desk incident could have been easily avoided.  That was just, well, kinda stupid really.  But other things you don't know unless you just jump in and give it a try. 

So I thought I would start making a list of all the little things I learn along the way from my mistakes in refinishing furniture.  Here is #1:

#1  When painting your piece of furniture, place it on a SECURE (ahem, non-teetering)  platform to raise it up off the ground  (so you can get the lower part easily).  You don't want your piece crashing to the ground and looking like this:

Guess what?  I already have a #2!

#2  Spray painting your furniture in the front driveway is probably not a good decision.  The overspray can easily drift onto your neighbors lovely green yard and while, yes, pink is pretty, no man wants a pink driveway, right?

My solution to the pink driveway?  Well, my (patient) husband and I have been parking our cars outside for awhile now, since the garage is my workspace. I decided that the pink area would just have to be my new parking area.  :)  It hides the pink quite well, and no one (my husband) will suspect a thing, right?  Of course I can't really go anywhere now...

P.S.  My neighbor told me a good power spray wash just might do the trick and wash the pink away- guess what I'm doing tomorrow???  (Along with sanding the poor pink desk and gluing its' broken drawer.)