Back to Building! Vanity project

It has been a long, long time since I built anything other than shelves...and although there were a few hiccups along the way, it felt GOOD!

Here is my latest project:

And please excuse the cell-phone photos--it's all I got before it went to it's new home! 

You may be wondering why this is titled as a "vanity."  Well, that's what this piece will be when it finally grows up all the way!  But it's not for MY home, so the final drilling and installing hasn't happened  yet.

FIVE years ago...I can't believe it's been that long...I built the Grand Truss table and benches for a client, followed by the Grand Rustic-X buffet.  This spring she contacted me to ask if I was still building, and if so...would I be interested in building a vanity for her??

This is the inspiration photo she sent me.  Isn't it gorgeous?? I love the top-mount sink and that gorgeous tile wall!  And barn doors---oh, how I've wanted to do something with a barn door! 

I warned her up front that I had NOT built anything with barn door before, but I was willing to try if she was willing to take a risk on me!

Thankfully she was also very flexible on timing.  My spring/summer/early fall were all crazy!  So this project got delayed until the second half of October, and I spent two weeks living in the garage until it was done.

The barn door hardware is the SmartStandard barn door hardware kit from Amazon.  Yes, there are lots of DIY hardware tutorials out there...but this kit matched the look of the inspiration piece SO well.  The only issue was that it was made for 60" and the client wanted the vanity to be 50"...so it did require some hardware surgery.


Did you catch the fact that I only had a PICTURE to go off of to build this piece??   A picture, a length, and a depth.  That was the sum total of my instructions. 



I sketched out the barest details (thank goodness it was a simple design), plugged in some measurements and constructed a basic cut list.  Ordered the hardware and away I went!




















The frame was a simple box, mainly made out of stock 2x4s.  Based on the inspiration photo, the shelves sit on top of the horizontal supports between the legs (see right), but I trimmed them with 2x2s.  You can see how they sit above the level of the shelf supports.

It gives the impression that the shelves are notched out to fit around the legs, but they are really separate pieces.  I cut down 2x6 lumber to make the shelves--both to get rid of the rounded edges and get the width that I needed.  I did the same thing to make the countertop, and the boards are all held together with pocket holes.

Pictures are a little few and far between.  October days in a garage in the Pacific Northwest are not the best photo-ops.  I worked on applying the finish, and had to sand down the whole top and start again with stain about twice.  Despite applying pre-stain conditioner, the stain didn't want to "take" evenly.

I was pretty nervous about putting the barn door hardware all together.  It's VERY bulky, and I was worried about it clearing the countertop just right (it did), but when I hung the doors--I encountered another problem.

When I hung the doors AT THE MEASUREMENTS SPECIFIED in the instructions...There was about an inch gap between the frame and the doors.  It bugged me.  A lot!!  I ended up putting a second trim piece behind the doors to hide the gap.  In the end--it will probably be for the best, as it will help hide pipes under the sink.

You can see they look much better (no gap!) on the finished product.

I had to play a little bit with staging, since I don't have a sink to put on top of it....

And I apologize again for bad pictures and bad lighting (not that I could do much about that one).

I'm anxious for my client to finish her bathroom so I can see what it will look like in her space!  Although I do think it also makes a nice console...entertainment center...buffet...whatever!

But I think it turned out pretty close to the inspiration photo, don't you think?

Charcoal Farmhouse Table & Aqua Benches

If you follow me on Facebook, you may have gotten a sneak peek at some of the furniture adventures I was up to last week!  Bought some, sold some, and did a lot of hauling in between.  Hopefully the ones I kept will be showing up here on the blog one of these days soon.

In the meantime, I have finished up another farmhouse table for my friend Kim.

This one is similar to Stacy’s table, although not as wide—but I did cut off the rounded edges of the stock lumber (with my table saw) for a smoother top.

Kim wanted a dark grayish-black color for her table, and I think we ended up with a pretty good charcoal.  This was achieved by first staining it all with Rustoleum Black, then a layer of Weathered Gray (well rubbed in), followed by another very light coat of black with an almost dry rag.

I built two benches for her as well (the plans are out of Ana White’s Handbuilt Home book).

I made a DIY chalk paint with the leftover paint from my daughter’s bedroom makeover.  After distressing, I wiped Rustoleum weathered gray stain over all.  It helped color the exposed raw wood, and dulled the color of the aqua a little bit.

I really like how using some of the same stain over the painted benches makes everything “go” together!

It was fun to step away from the brown stains for a little bit!

 

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Linking up here:

The Inspiration Exchange	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper
Friday Remodelaholic	The Scoop!
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off Miss Mustard Seed
Beyond the Picket Fence	Coastal Charm
Knick of Time	Domestically Speaking
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
	Mod Vintage Life

Wide Farmhouse Table

When my family first moved to Clearfield, Utah, in 2003, I was lonely and needing a friend.  Thankfully, I found one in a neighbor and fellow church member (Stacy) who lived just down the street, and we have enjoyed a steady friendship ever since, despite the fact that they moved away from Utah years before we did.  Our move to Washington, however, brought us within 3 1/2 hours of each other, and we have found many excuses to burn up the road between Portland and Seattle since then!

Back in 2011, I refinished a table for Stacy’s family, seen here.  Shortly thereafter, though, they added a fifth child to the family—and there was no room for him to have a seat at the table!  In addition, a small antique table didn’t really provide enough room for both plates AND food, so it was time for a change.

Enter the “wide” farmhouse table.  The space for a table was limited in length, but there was actually a fair amount of width to work with so Stacy had the brilliant idea of making a table that could accommodate two chairs on each end.

The table is 50” wide by 72” long.  The top is made out of various board widths, and I used my table saw to rip 1/2” off each side to get rid of the rounded edges that stock lumber has.  It makes for a nice smooth table top—but I lost the look of the random width boards because it turned out so smooth!

I distressed the table with chain, hammer, needle-nose pliers, screwdriver, and a Dremel tool.  It was stained and sanded down about five times (no kidding) because I had a hard time finding a color I liked—that I thought she would also like!  In the end, it’s basically Rustoleum American Walnut, sanded back, followed by Rustoluem Wheat (we’ll ignore the layers of black, willow, weathered gray, and paint).  It’s finished with Minwax Hand-Rubbed Polyurethane and Dark Paste Wax.

I bought a set of four pressed-back chairs off of Craigslist.  I liked them because they were in a dark stain to begin with, rather than a medium oak.  I painted them with  SW Creamy.  As I was painting the chairs one afternoon, I kept thinking to myself, “I HATE painting chairs!  This is why I don’t paint chairs!!”

But the next day, when I was distressing them and glazing them, I thought, “These are so pretty!  I should refinish more chairs!!”

It’s confusing to be me!

I built the benches based on the plans in Ana White’s Handbuilt Home book (adjusted for size).  The picture on the left shows what they looked like when Stacy came to see the table…and the picture on the right is what they looked like when she left with them!

I had first stained the benches with Rustoleum American Walnut, and then I used MMS Milk Paint in Tricyle over top.  I really, really didn’t like the way the color turned out.  Even with dark wax on top, it was a bright tomato-y red, and not a deep dark red like I love. 

Stacy wanted them to have more wood showing anyway, so between the two of us we sanded them some more (I may have sanded them a LOT more than Stacy was anticipating, but she graciously went with it), and then we rubbed more of the American Walnut stain over all.  It colored the wood where it had gone to bare wood, and it deepened the color significantly.  It looked MUCH better, and blended better with the overall look of the set.

At least, I think so!

The table, chairs, and benches made it safely to Portland this past weekend.  We managed to fit all of them…plus a copper boiler, four big shopping bags full of dishes, and Stacy’s LUGGAGE (which is always significant) in a Honda Odyssey!  And knowing that the table is 50” wide—and a Honda Odyssey is only 49.5” wide…you should be VERY IMPRESSED by that fact!

Stacy has hosted guests for dinner twice since she’s been home, and a batch of homeschoolers besides.  One night she had room for nine people, three pizzas, salad, a pitcher of lemonade, and I don’t know what all else!

I feed eight people all the time.  Maybe I need a wide farmhouse table too!

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Disclaimer:  Stacy may or may not be my friend’s real name.  And if it isn’t, she may or may not have preferred to be called Princess Leia and/or Hot Rod.  And she may or may not be a hobbit.

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Linking up here:

The Inspiration Exchange	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper
Friday Remodelaholic	The Scoop!
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off Miss Mustard Seed
Beyond the Picket Fence	Coastal Charm
Knick of Time	Domestically Speaking
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
	Mod Vintage Life

The Incredible Shrinking Table

I have been working on another Farmhouse Table for a dear friend over the last couple of weeks.  It is allll-most done.  I think.  It’s way  more stressful to build for someone you know, you know??  Anyway, I am anxiously waiting for my daughter to get home so she can help me haul it in the house so I can finish poly-ing and wax-ing it.  It’s about 45 degrees outside, and things are taking too long to dry!

Anyway, working on this latest table (#9, if we’re keeping count), reminded me that I never showed table #8.  That’s probably because it is nothing really new or different than the other farmhouse tables I’ve built…but also because the blasted thing drove me crazy.

Back before Thanksgiving, I realized I had enough leftover wood to make a table base.  So with only a few extra dollars (OK, maybe $50) to buy wood for a top, I could make another table to fill my empty dining room.

And so I did.  I assembled the base, the top, brought them inside and put them together…

But something was wrong.

If you really look closely at the two preceding pictures, you might be able to see it.  The breadboard ends were crooked!  I have no idea how it happened, but both of the ends took off at a slant.

I tried to convince myself that it reeeally wasn’t that noticeable.  I actually tried to sell it, at a significant discount, but I couldn’t sell it without pointing out the flaw—and big surprise, no one wanted to buy it then!

So what’s a girl to do??  Well, I ignored it until a few weeks after Christmas.  We actually had people sitting at it for Christmas dinner, and we built a puzzle on it…and it continued to drive me crazy.

So my nice big table got shrunk!  I took it back outside and disassembled it.  I removed the offending breadboard ends completely, and then I cut down the aprons on the long sides of the table by about 9”.

I was left with a petite farmhouse table!

It sold more easily this time, because I didn’t feel I had to apologize for it!

Oh, and did you notice my cute little bentwood bistro chairs?  I picked them up at Ruffles & Rust a few weeks ago.  I think they’re keepers! 

Now I just have to build a table to go with them! 

Triple Printers Console Cabinet

There was a strong temptation for me to entitle this post:  “She’s not dead.  Not yet.”  (And if you know what movie character I’m paraphrasing, you get 10 Chicken Points.)

It has been a very looonnnngg while since I’ve posted, or even been particularly active on the blogs at all.  I seem to have been part of the “where does blogging fit into my life” club…as I’ve found several other bloggers who have also taken long breaks, trying to answer that question!

I think I just managed to burn myself out a little between a summer market, a fall market, and Christmas signs for two shops and one small show.  Then there were Christmas preparations…and finally, a break!  It was delightful.  I loved that week after Christmas where there was really nothing I had to do!  Do you ever feel that way?

With shows and special orders out of the way for a while, I decided to tackle a “home” project…our family room.  When we moved in here (just over a year ago), the family room was the room where we put everything that we couldn’t figure out another place for…it became the dumping ground.  The kids used the room because it was where the TV was, but I almost never went in there, even to watch a movie…I hated everything about it!

So in the past few weeks, it has been my happy-although-at-times-frustrating task to make it in to a more useable, functional, and pretty place for our family to use.  I’ll share some “before” pictures at another time, but for tonight, I just thought I’d share my one major “build” for this room.

I fell in love with Ana White’s Triple Printers Console plans when they first appeared more than a year ago.  It was one of the first items I “pinned” for inspiration to my Family Room Pinterest board (if you visit, you might find some other hints of what is going on in this room).

I knew I wanted a painted finish, however, more like the Pottery Barn Dawson Media Console, and this is what I ended up with (the picture above looks a little greener than real life, I think).  First I stained the whole cabinet with Rustoleum American Walnut stain, then I painted with a DIY chalk paint made with sample pot of Valspar Perfect Storm.  After some heavy distressing, I glazed it all with more stain, then used MMS wax in both regular and dark to protect it all.

This was a challenging build in some ways—namely, the cabinet doors.  There is more of a gap around them than I would like, but it doesn’t bother me as much now that I’ve lived with it for a while.  I discovered that you should NOT buy the cheapest hinges you can find because, well….they’re cheap.  At 22” wide, these door are heavy, and cheap hinges tend to sag…and there’s nothing you can do about it.  I may be a little bitter about that. 

One of the things that made this a simpler build, however, was that I splurged for Select Pine.  It’s significantly more expensive, but SO lovely and smooth—hardly any sanding required!  I still had to hunt…and hunt….and hunt some more (at two different stores)…to find straight 2x2’s, but once I did, it was easy to build nice and square with those perfect corners.

I omitted the center drawer and just put in a shelf to store the DVD player and the Wii console.  Then my other splurge was to buy three Flipworks DVD trays through Amazon.  Each rack screws directly onto the shelves, but then slides out so you can access all of your movies.  We have stored our DVDs in IKEA boxes for a long time, and you had to go through every box to find the movie you wanted (yes, I’d considered labeling the boxes, but there’s no point when you have 6 children who never put anything away properly).

I adore all the label pulls, which I purchased from D. Lawless Hardware (they are VERY reasonably priced!).  I really have no plans to put actual labels in them….I think they are pretty just the way they are!

This new console is really the focal point of the whole room, and it makes me happy every time I walk in there—a far cry from how I used to feel!  I am still anxious to get everything put together so I can show off the room, but it is coming together…piece by piece!

 

Thanks to Someday Crafts, Elizabeth & Co., My Repurposed Life, and Domestically Speaking for featuring this project!

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Linking up here:

The Inspiration Exchange	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper	Thrifty Décor Chick
Friday Remodelaholic	The Scoop!
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off Miss Mustard Seed
Beyond the Picket Fence	Coastal Charm
Knick of Time	Domestically Speaking
Perfectly Imperfect
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	Mod Vintage Life

Grand Rustic X Buffet

The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving were SO busy….

I was working on three huge building projects.

Finishing up another table (pictures to come)….

Building another woven-back bench (this time out of cedar…it smelled SO good)…

and working on this buffet for the new owners of the Grand Truss Table.

I kept thinking that when we got back from our Thanksgiving trip, I would have a day or two to just DO NOTHING.

Who was I kidding??

When I got back from Thanksgiving, it really hit me….there’s only THREE WEEKS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!

I’m seeing all these homes beautifully decorated for Christmas and all these holiday projects, and my house was still stuck in fall mode!

So I started hauling out the Christmas boxes, and at least for one day…I “Christmas-ified” one little corner of the home….

This buffet is a modification of Ana White’s Rustic X Buffet.   I used 4x4’s for the legs to match the chunky style of the Grand Truss table, which is why I’m calling it a “Grand” Rustic X Buffet!   The horizontal cross-pieces are made from 2x4’s to match the extra thickness of the legs, and the top used one extra 2x6.  I also changed the measurements to make this buffet 72” wide.

The finish is two thick coats of Minwax Special Walnut stain, followed by an over-glaze of black for some extra depth.  The visible hardware is all decorative.

This will go to its new home this weekend…hopefully I can get some of the rest of my house decorated by then!

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Linking up here:

The Inspiration Exchange	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper	Thrifty Décor Chick
Friday Remodelaholic	The Scoop!
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off Miss Mustard Seed
Beyond the Picket Fence	Coastal Charm
Knick of Time	Domestically Speaking
Perfectly Imperfect	No Minimalist Here
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	Mod Vintage Life A Little Knick Knack

Grand Truss Table & Benches

This could be the one.

Really.

The number of tables that have come and gone in my dining room since the beginning of the year has become a little bit of a joke.

I think this makes seven.

And the funny part is…this one won’t be staying either!

I built this as a custom order for a woman I met at the October Market, but I’m not sure I want to let it go!

This thing is huge—8 feet long!  (That’s why it’s “Grand.”)

The benches are 80” each, and it easily seats 10 people with chairs at the ends—you could squeeze 12 in if they’re friendly!  The benches are an adaptation of Ana White’s Providence bench. 

The table…well, it was a bit of an adventure.  I started out looking at the Providence Table plans, but I knew I wanted a chunkier base…and the plan page directed me to Design Confidential plans.  Unfortunately, the plans from Design Confidential are not as well-written as Ana’s plans, plus some of the measurements are just plain…wrong.  I had to do a little “winging” of things as I went along.

After my table was done, I found that Ana White does have her own 4x4 truss table plans here.  Oh, how I wish I had realized that at the beginning; it would have saved me a grand headache!  But I guess I can say that mine is an “original!” 

The other big change for this table is the color.  I have been playing with light, old, weathered looks for all the others, and I loved them….

….but I think my heart really lies with dark.  My customer wanted a very dark Pottery Barn-esque finish, I think I achieved it, with FOUR coats of Minwax Antique Walnut, mixed with a little ebony here and there (not a separate coat) for depth of color.  The staining and finishing took FOR.EV.ER, but it was totally worth it in the end.

You can also get a glimpse of exposed hardware on this table.  Rather than use pocket holes (which is problematic on 4x4 lumber anyway), I used 5-inch lag screws to attach the beams together.  It just adds to the rustic quality, I think.

The only way I can reconcile myself to giving up this table is knowing that I can build another one…for me!  Plus, 8-feet is really too big for my dining room, darn it.

I’ll just enjoy looking at it until it goes to its new home!

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Linking up here:

The Inspiration Exchange	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper	Thrifty Décor Chick
Friday Remodelaholic	The Scoop!
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off Miss Mustard Seed
Beyond the Picket Fence	Coastal Charm
Knick of Time	Domestically Speaking
Perfectly Imperfect	No Minimalist Here
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	Mod Vintage Life A Little Knick Knack