Numbered bar stools

I found these two wood-and-metal barstools at Deseret Industries months ago. It's a well-established fact that I have a thing for barstools...which is silly, since I own exactly ONE, and it's not a work of art.

They were painted dark green from top to bottom, and it was darn near impossible to sand the paint off of the metal legs!


So I resorted to stripper...


Don't you love how the top gets all moldy looking??


I was in for a surprise when I started scraping paint.

For underneath the green, there was brown.
Underneath the brown, there was red.
Underneath the red...well, there was finally metal.

I sanded down to bare wood on the seats, but I never did completely get down to bare metal on those legs...even after multiple applications of stripper. But I did get down far enough (and smooth enough) to paint again.

So, after Rustoleum primer and black spray paint for the legs, and a little Minwax English Chestnut stain on the tops, here they are today:


I used my Cricut to cut cardstock stencils for the numbers. I squared the stencils up with the grain of the wood, but when I replaced the seats on the bases, I discovered that the grain wasn't squared up with the legs! That bothers me a little...but I am telling myself that for a "funky junk" style, it's OK.





Do I believe myself? That remains to be seen!

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It's Di~Vine!

If you live in the Ogden/Salt Lake City area, you really should stop by Di-Vine Consignment(4510 S. 900 W.) this week for their Grand Opening Celebration! They will be having prize drawings today and tomorrow.

I became friends with the owner through some mutually beneficial transactions. She bought this cute headboard from me:

as well as this cedar chest:


and I purchased this bench from her (it was originally yellow; I repainted it).

Recently she let me into her "workroom" where she literally has stacks of furniture waiting to be redone/refurbished/updated/glorified (whatever)! She has her work cut out for MONTHS, if not years! She commissioned me to finish a dining set for her so she could sell it in her shop.

There are six chairs; one is an arm chair:



And look at these gorgeous table legs!


My first step was to sand down the table top...

...and that's where the trouble started. The veneer was loose and dry in several places along the edge, and the sander ripped some pieces right off. Argghh! The plan had been to stain the top, but missing veneer poses a problem.

I wondered, though, how bad could it be? So I filled in the missing places with wood filler, and stained it anyway. Yeah, not so good. Although wood filler is "stainable," in a large area you really miss seeing that pretty wood grain!

Strike 1.

Then I thought about "faux painting" the wood-filled area to simulate wood grain. I broke out my paintbrushes and acrylic paints, and gave it a go. Hmmm...it didn't seem too bad... Stain it again. Color's good, but the texture--still bad.

Strike 2.

Forget about stain. Let's just paint the whole top, and then see what glaze can do. Hmm. Not bad, but kind of bleahh.

Strike 3.

This is getting ridiculous! And yes, in baseball I would be "out." Thankfully it doesn't work that way with furniture. ;-)

In sheer desperation, I pulled out my leftover can of MinWax Polyshades in Antique Walnut. I had tried it on another project, and I was less than impressed. This time, I was hoping the maybe the color in the polyurethane would give an extra depth of color to the plain brown painted top.

Whaddya know...it worked!

{huge sigh of relief}

Magically, blessedly, it worked. The color was lovely; it glowed. I had to take back all the nasty things I said about Polyshades in the past.

As you can see, the apron of the table and the chairs were painted in Rustoleum's Heirloom White. I glazed everything with burnt umber craft paint afterward. Here are the pretty leg supports. They were a late arrival; they had been misplaced and weren't with the rest of the set!


Look at the beautifully detailed table legs!



Here's the pretty arm chair:


The owner was going to cover the seats herself. See the pretty fabric on the top of the table? It's brown with a turquoise and ivory pattern. However, as people have come to look at the set in the shop, not everyone has been impressed with her choice! So for now, she's going to leave the seats uncovered and offer the buyer their choice of fabric for the seats.


Here's a last pretty picture!


And coming soon...wait until you see what I got in exchange! (Hint: it wasn't money!)

Birds & Branches Chests of Drawers

These two chest of drawers are another Deseret Industries find. You don't often find matching pieces there! They weren't bad as-is, but they could use some freshening.

These were both pretty dinged up, and the small chest was missing the top two knobs.


Last fall my basement was briefly painted a very pale yellow--I liked the color everywhere except actually in the basement! (Something about the evening light made it seem a little green, and my husband said he felt like he was sitting in the middle of a key lime pie). I decided this was a perfect project on which to use my leftover paint!

I painted both chests in the soft yellow, and then I glazed them both with burnt umber acrylic paint. I didn't bother filling any but the really big dings, so the glaze settled in them and gave them a more gracefully "aged" look.

I replaced the top two knobs on both chests with glass-look knobs from Hobby Lobby.

Did you notice my little stencils? I used my Cricut to cut out cardstock stencils of four different birds and two different branches. I didn't want anything too babyish or garish; I wanted these pieces to be able to "grow" with the girl I envision using them.

So the top of each chest has a bird and a branch of some sort, and the second drawer of each has a different bird.


These went home to a pair of 8-year-old twin girls!

Cricut Love

I withstood the charm of the Cricut for a long time...until I started refurbishing furniture! Then I had all sorts of fun ideas for stencils I could do. I borrowed a friend's machine for my first foray into stencil-making, but eventually I found a really good deal for a used Cricut on eBay...and the best thing was, the seller lived in Hooper! I asked her if I could pick up the machine if I won, an she said "yes." That saved me about $20 in shipping charges.

Now that I have my own Cricut, I have used it to make stencils for these bar stools and this coffee table and this desk. But I think my favorite use was for this twin headboard/footboard set! I bought it for $2.50 at a Habitat for Humanity Re-Store sale.




I love birds! I'm glad I still have friends close by that I can borrow more cartridges from!

Feeling blue...

I found this oval coffee table at Savers for a mere $5. She needed to come home with me! She had lots of dings and scratches, and I had to sand...and sand...and sand...to get rid of them! Then I used spray primer on the top, and my can had a faulty nozzle! Big drops and dribbles of primer went ALL OVER my table top. That's a big problem! Instead of a nice thing coat, I had a nice thing coat in some places, and big thick polka dots in others--and they showed. That meant I had to sand...and sand...and sand...AGAIN! I finally sprayed it all with Rustoleum's Aqua Blue spray paint, distressed it, and glazed it with walnut stain.

The fern stencil was an excuse to try out my new-to-me Cricut! I just cut it out of regular cardstock, sprayed the back with adhesive spray, and used spray paint for the stencil. Cardstock stencils work pretty good for spray paint; not so well if you're actually trying to paint with a paintbrush, I've discovered!

Anyway, I think she is pretty cute!