Spray Painted Organizer

So, being an math/science person means I will either be compulsively organized or incapable of maintaining any pattern of organization that makes sense to anyone other than myself. And, I can tell you with all honesty that I tend towards clutter. As a result, I try to combat my natural born tendencies by getting large quantities of organization trays, boxes and anything else I can use for "out of sight, out of mind". Well I came accross a fairly hideous and obviously well used organizer at an auction, but the shape and draws had a charm. I ended up purchasing that and its metal (also in need of a face-lift) brother for $4 for the pair. I decided to clean and spray paint them. I mean why not have a set of custom organizers that will be whatever set of colors I decide. Both Organizers can be seen below.

I then soaked and scrubbed the grey one in warm soapy water to get most of the stickers off. I should not that while removing said stickers, I was also sending vivid pictures of anger to the person who had decided to use said sticker on the box. After that was done, the drawers were removed and the first coat of black spray paint was applied.

It already looked a lot better, as the yellowing and fading of its original color were no longer visible. I then took the drawers and began spray painting them one of three colors I had already chosen.

Once all the drawers were spray painted, I reassembled them.

Pollock Table

So my mom and I were looking for a table for my entry way and were struggling to find something that was the right size and didn’t look completely depressing. So we decided to “pollock” a table.  We found a table whose size and style we liked (see below).

From there we took out the drawer and sanded it down until all the knots were out of the wood. We weren’t too worried about making sure all the maroonish paint was off. We then painted on 2 coats of primer with a day to dry between each coat (see below).

Using a fine sander, we sanded down to take care of uneven patches in the paint and smooth out the primer coat. We had previously chosen a white paint that we felt wouldn't be too bright or dull for our purposes. We painted the selected white onto the drawer and table. Around the trim of the drawer we painted on a color (yellow) that would also eventually be used in the “pollocking” of our piece (see below).

We then took the table to a nice open area, put the drawer back in and put down a painter’s cloth beneath the table.  We got a selection of brushes and sticks to use in our paint throwing. Using one color as a time, we circled the table and make whip like motions to get long splatters (a few splatters will end up as blobs as you can see). After we went through all the colors once, we decided we wanted a little more “Pollock” in the table so we did another round of colors. The result can be seen below.

The picture below shows the table in my entry way. The red we used in splattering the table was some of the leftover from paining the entry way.

Who Is this Person Posting?

So I am a student at an engineering school, which means that my ability at anything artistic is somewhat limited. I always look at craft things and think, "I could totally do that...". Well, I definitely can't, most of the time. Some of the time, I am successful (and usually that involves the help of someone else). So I have decided when something comes out successful, I want to share it with the world. I have to prove to someone that engineers can play arts and crafts (but don't worry, I am not an engineer, just pretending to be one for the namesake).