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?

Merry Christmas & Our Dining Room!

It is just after noon on a lovely Christmas day!  The family just finished watching our new copy of Guardians of the Galaxy…which I will frankly admit didn’t impress me that much when I saw it in the theater…so I decided to take a few pictures and blog! 
That *is* rest and relaxation for me!  I have been too bush (or distracted) to do much of it lately.  The holiday house tours have come and gone, but I thought I’d share a few pictures of my (mostly) COMPLETED dining room before the Christmas decorations come down.

Yes, you read that right…mostly completed!  That means I finally built a dining table that I intend to keep!  Maybe I’ll do a full “reveal” at another time, but I wouldn’t hold my breath…

I bought this set of eight chairs almost a year ago from Ruffles & Rust in Snohomish, WA.  They showed pictures of them on their Facebook page, and I think I was in at opening the next day.  I built the table to go with them, and I think I used something like seven different coats of five different stains to get the color right!

Here’s my Christmas centerpiece…and old shutter, an IKEA sheepskin, some wooden beads, and a pretty candle arrangement I got from my mother several years ago.  I texted a picture of it to my sister and asked, “Is this too weird or just weird enough?”  She responded, “Just weird enough!  It suits you!”

Still not sure how to take that….

In the background you can get a glimpse of my antique pie safe.  This is the wall where my suitcases used to be…

…but I moved them to the largest wall (painted in chalkboard paint!) and added a couple new additions (the gray suitcase on the bottom left and the little train case on the bottom right).

I have a small collection of reindeer that gets displayed on my suitcases every year.  I love how they look on the chalkboard wall.

This is another new addition…this beautiful old pine hutch.  I’ve wanted one for years, and I scooped this one up for $75 from Craigslist. 

My girls helped me glitter some paper mache stars to hang on this old ladder.  I’ve had the ladder for over two years, and it just barely got to come in the house!

I made the curtains out of my beloved ikat…I have ikat curtains in our vintage geek family room too!

It has made me happy to have a pretty dining room for the holidays this year, and it will make me happier still when we fill this table (as well as our kitchen table) up with friends and family in a few hours!
From the Red Hen’s Home to yours…we hope you are enjoying a wonderful Christmas holiday!

 

Linking up here:

My Repurposed Life	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper	Miss Mustard Seed
Mod Vintage Life	Coastal Charm
The Scoop!

Two shall become One

In the last days of getting ready for The Barn vintage market last August, I was fighting some serious burn-out!  I still had a list of projects I wanted to do, but I was rapidly approaching the “who cares” point…  Have you ever been there with me??

Here’s one little project that barely squeaked in, and I’m so glad it did!

I came across the parts to an antique treadle sewing machine at a garage sale last spring.  It was disassembled, filthy…and I talked the lady down to $7!

Here’s how it looked after I cleaned it, put it together (you can see that the actual foot pedal part is missing, but I didn’t care…see, there’s a theme going on here), and gave it a coat of some black spray paint.

The plan was to build a new top, like this other treadle table I made here. 

But…then I remembered another table top I had in my “stash.”  It was a Goodwill find from over a year ago that I rescued it off of three spindly legs (the legs I burned). 

Angels sang!  They were a perfect fit.  I refinished the wood top, added a graphic (of course), and put the two together. 

And then…I took a lousy cell-phone picture.

<Sigh.>  Now that…in retrospect…I wish I had cared about!

Black Beauty

Much to my dear husband’s delight, our dining room has a table in it again…although not for long!

I refinished this set for a client who had picked up this set for a song from a neighbor at a garage sale.  You can see that the finish on the top was pretty worn (it looked worse up close).  She had hopes of refurbishing it herself, but only got as far as replacing three of the seat covers (red instead of white) before losing interest!  I was happy to step in and help!

After removing the original finish, the top got several new coats of stain in a mix of Minwax Dark Walnut and Early American.

The chairs and the apron were painted in a DIY black chalk paint, and I distressed with a wet sponge to let some of the original finish show through.  I sealed the top with Minwax Wipe-on Polyurethane followed by a coat of DIY dark wax, and the painted parts were sealed with General Finishes High Performance TopCoat (satin finish) and DIY dark wax.

I recovered the chairs in this pretty dark fabric she brought me.  She has little ones, so DARK fabric was a must!

This set is HUGE!  The chairs are very generously sized and nicely padded, so it’s a very comfortable table to sit at.  There are two extra leaves for this table as well, so it’s perfect for large gatherings. 

I really love how it turned out…my dining room is moving up on my priority list of rooms to finish!

Linking up here:

My Repurposed Life	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper	Miss Mustard Seed
Friday Remodelaholic	Coastal Charm
The Scoop!

Two-Tone Table, revisited

My love for farmhouse tables continues unabated, but I took a little break from that style this past week or so.

When I showed you the Wide Farmhouse Table I made for my friend Stacy, I mentioned that I had previously refinished another table for her, but it was looking a little worse for the wear after a few years with a family of boys!

My job was to make it beautiful again.  What do you think?

Here’s what it looked like when I got it:

And here’s what it looked like after the first re-finish job:

After some good hard family use, there were some real problems:

Not sure why my cell phone photos look a little blue!  Anyway, there was chipped paint, naturally.  And then the finish on the top of the table went very cloudy in places.  I blame an inferior polyurethane I got from Ace Hardware (sorry, Ace), as that is the only time I’ve ever used it, and I hated it even then!  I actually still had the same can in my stash…I have now gotten rid of it! 

I chose to use CitriStrip to get rid of the old poly, rather than sanding it down.  There really was no need to go back to bare wood, as I still liked the original colors underneath.

I did, however, refresh the color with a new coat of stain before putting on the polyurethane.  This time I used three coats of Minwax Hand-rubbed Polyurethane in Satin, followed by one coat of paste wax.

The chairs got a light sanding, and then I repainted with oil-based paint this time.  It tends to be a little more long-wearing, I think.  I recovered the seats in this pretty fabric.  You know I’m a sucker for typography!!

I love how the leaves on this table tuck away neatly underneath.  Pull them both out, and you have another 30” of table space!  Such a great feature.

I adore the legs on this piece…

I am so glad I got to be the one to give this set a THIRD life!

I have to say…it really looked gorgeous in my dining room!  It was hard to let it go…again!

What do you think??  Is there room in your life for both rustic farmhouse tables and beautiful antiques?  There is in mine!

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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