Little Fixa: Fixing

I recently purchased a chest of drawers off eBay with the plan to fix it up and make it my own. I had never done anything like this before and I had no idea what to do once I had the chest. As the chest was old it smelt like mothballs, I did some research AND found out how to get rid of the smell. I emailed Fiona from Lilyfield Life Blog and she was kind enough to email me back with how to get rid of the smell, it worked a charm. Next was to get the materials I needed to fix it up, I went to Bunnings to buy paint, sandpaper, and everything else I needed. I took a drawer with me so I could explain exactly what I wanted to do, the man serving me at Bunnings told me how to sand it back, paint it and the process I needed to take in fixing it. It was great help because I really had no idea what to do. The last thing I needed to make the drawers complete were new handles as the current ones were not the look I was after. It took me awhile to find what I wanted and I was lucky to find them in a vintage shop in Marrickville That Vintage Shop, they had a great range of drawer handles and I bought some clear glass crystal knobs.

Steps into fixing up the chest of drawers:

Step 1: Getting rid of the mothball smell, Wipe down the chest with water/bleach solution and leave it in the sun for a few hours to air.

Step 2: Fill in any dents with putty

Step 3: Sand the chest back, not completely but enough so the shine of the old paint has been removed

Step 4: Wipe down chest as to get rid of any dust

Step 5: Paint 2 coats of undercoat paint

Step 6: Sand the undercoat paint back slightly

Step 7: Wipe down chest as to get rid of any dust

Step 8: Paint 2 coats of top coat paint

Step 9: Attach new handles

Finish :)

Below are pictures of Before & After and also a few progress shots.

Just as quickly as the riots came and destroyed the streets of London, local volunteers were cleaning them up. It will be a total city/town/area renovation and clean up with the locals providing support and funding to ease the pressure off the individuals who have lost everything. The same way the riots were organised the clean up was organised through social media.

There are a few news articles focused on the clean up and how people are coming together and helping anyone they can. The Daily Mail has written an article about the volunteers in the UK. The article gets straight to the point and makes it about the volunteers "Where youths had roamed the streets with bricks and bats just hours earlier, a new army had appeared. Invoking London’s famous ‘Blitz spirit’, volunteers responded defiantly to the worst violence the city has witnessed in decades by rolling up their sleeves and helping in the clean-up" (The Daily Mail). The article focuses on the community spirit and everyone coming together to help the affected areas.

The Daily Mail had put together a well-written article that looks at the after mass of the London Riots. Not only have NICHOLAS MCDERMOTT and WILLIAM JAFFRAY the authors of the article written about what the locals have been doing and quoting them they have included some inspiring photographs and also devastating photographs. As devastating as it is to see how the streets of London have been destroyed its amazing at the same time to see the amount of people that have volunteered to help clean up and put the streets of London back together. They captured the moment when they mentioned the help Dave Cox owner of a TD Sports store had received "Something unexpected happened. As Mr Cox surveyed the carnage, a group of volunteers arrived and offered to help him clear it up. In less than 30 minutes the smashed glass was swept away and the shop restored to a semblance of normality. Then with cheery waves, the helpers were gone to help the next stricken business. ‘It was fantastic, I was very emotional actually,’ said Mr Cox. ‘It proves there are still some good people around.’" (The Daily Mail).

The article is well structured it has a catchy heading reinforcing the message I believe they are focusing on “even though you destroy us we have double the troops to clean it up, nothing can get us down”. The article has sourced photos that capture the scene of Londoners coming together and it has also included photographs of the carnage. Opening the reader’s eyes to see really how much has been destroyed and the reason there are so many amazing volunteers helping to clean up the streets and local stores. The Daily Mail website is easy to navigate, it has a navigation toolbar on the top of the article allowing the user to access other articles and sections the website provides. Something impressive is the Facebook like button – over 3000 people have liked this article, which is pretty impressive for one article. At the time of viewing the reader comments were currently unavailable, this is disappointing as I am always interested in what people think about certain articles and seeing as over 3k people have liked the article there are bound to be some interesting comments.