Nursery Bookcase

This is a project that makes me both ecstatic to be a woodworker and EXTREMELY frustrated that I didn’t take up mountain biking or sailing or something else. It starts like this:

My wife and I finished up the nursery about a month ago (just before Josephine arrived). She looked at one of the corners of the room and said, “we could really use some storage over there.” This was my chance to justify all those expensive tools!

Using leftover birch plywood, MDF, pocket screws, and poplar I whipped this together in 10 days. I modified some plans from Woodsmith’s free site and banged it out while working a full time job. I was quite impressed and so was she. I was beaming with both paternal and woodworking pride. I put on two coats of Kilz primer, let each coat dry for 24 hours in the basement next to the dehumidifier. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly.

Then I started to put the finish color on and it went downhill from there. After five coats of Valspar ‘Quite Red’ latex paint from Lowes and about three weeks of cure time it’s still slightly tacky. It looks great but you can’t put anything on it without creating marks. I waited at least 24 hours between coats. I’ve done this before but I usually use Sherwin Williams paint.

I don’t know if it was the paint? The brutal humidity associated with August in the Mid West? Not enough time between coats? Punishment for my prideful gloating?

If anyone has any advice I’d love to hear what you think.

Enjoy.

-Shawn

-- -Shawn