Vanity & Dresser Refinish

Thank you for all the kind comments about my daughter’s bedroom makeover, both here and on Facebook!  It was so fun to get to work on this with her.  She is always my sounding board for the various crazy ideas I have, but this time she was truly invested in the project!

One of our first steps in her room remodel was finding some new furniture for her to use.  The $100 junky particle board set I bought four years ago (at her request, make no mistake about that!) was promptly sold—for the same price I paid for it!  There’s just no accounting for tastes, is there??

We scoured Craigslist for a vanity/dresser set, and finally came home with these for $150:

Only $50 more, and this time it was actually decent furniture!

Well, you can see the finish on the top was in REALLY rough shape.  But structurally everything was sound, and the veneer was in very good condition…a couple of chips here and there, but nothing major.

The “to-paint-or-not-to-paint” question was discussed at length, but Naomi eventually decided on “not.”

Since she wanted a darker stain, I decided to use my favorite miracle product, General Finishes Gel Stain (no, unfortunately they don’t pay me to say that) in Antique Walnut.  

You can see how I used it in my card catalog refinish here and a bedroom set here.

The great thing about this gel stain is that you DON’T have to completely remove the old finish.  Rough it up, yes—but if you’re going darker, you don’t have to go down to bare wood.  You can see how I lightly sanded the bottom half of the side of the dresser below.

I did have to do some more serious sanding on the top of the vanity.  Where the poly finish had worn away over time the colors were very splotchy—so I had to do a little more work to get everything back to the same tone.

But oh, look at what a difference ONE coat of gel stain made!

I ended up using two coats on everything, followed by two coats of General Finishes Polyurethane.

And oh, I think it was worth it!

The handles are original, I just cleaned them up a bit a lot!

And I recovered the vanity bench in a fun yellow and white chevron.

Have you ever used gel stain before?  What did you think of it?

**********************

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

Three-Tone Dresser

My dear parents were visiting us all last week, so I’m a little behind on projects…but I wouldn’t trade my time with them for anything!  This is the first time they’ve been able to come see us since we moved last Christmas.  My mother is in very poor health and it is particularly difficult for her to travel so I don’t know how many opportunities like this we will have.  She kept fretting that she was “keeping me” from getting ready for my next show…but I reminded her of one of the greatest lessons she ever taught me…

People are always more important than things!

******

So here’s a project that I actually finished several weeks ago; it has already gone on to a new home.  I did get to enjoy it in my dining room for a little while!

It was a garage sale find that was meant to be mine!  It was in remarkably good shape…it had the original casters (love those), all the pulls, no missing veneer, etc.  The only thing it was missing was the little metal drawer stops that keep the drawers from sliding all the way back…a few partially-exposed screws took care of that!

I thought the wood veneer on the drawers was too pretty to cover up.  the top drawer is something like curly maple…I think…while the bottom drawers are walnut.  I am no expert, so I could be totally off here!

Although I used the same antique walnut stain on all the exposed wood, I wipe it off very quickly on the top drawer to highlight the difference.

The body was painted in Sherwin Williams Creamy, and lightly distressed and glazed.  I love the contrast of the paint and the stain!

You can see another two-tone dresser I finished last year here.  I don’t think this one will be the last!

***************************

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

The “Free” Waterfall Chest of Drawers

Have you ever surfed the “free” category on Craigslist?  Well don’t.  It’s addicting! 

The siren call of getting something for nothing can be hard to overcome.  I know, because I spent several weeks checking it obsessively for something wonderful.

The hard part is, if you’re not willing to get in the car and go someplace RIGHT NOW, you’re going to miss out on the wonderful stuff.

And mostly, the wonderful stuff…really isn’t.

As my mother said, “If it sounds too good to be true…it probably is!”

But here’s my story!

This is the end result of a pretty little waterfall dresser I picked up FOR FREE! 

When the ad popped up, I excitedly e-mailed the owner, only to find that it had already been spoken for.  <sigh>  Much to my delight, the freeloader before me prior interested party was a no-show, and I was next on the list!

This is what it looked like when I got it.

Not bad, right?  There were a few chips and dings, and the finish was old and faded, but all the drawers and hardware were there…I picked it up without looking a gift horse in the mouth!

When I got it home, the hidden problems became apparent.  A couple of the drawers were pretty much held together with spit and baling wire, and I think all the drawer guides, slides, and whatsits were missing.

But the exterior was really in such good condition that I couldn’t bring myself to paint it!  So instead, I sanded off the old finish coat and used General Finishes Gel Stain to bring the wood back to life.

Look at this detail!

The problem was that fixing the drawers to work properly was really beyond me.  I could cobble them back together so contents didn’t fall out the cracks, but I really didn’t have a clue how to construct new wood slides and guides.

So this was a piece I chose NOT to take with me to the barn sale.  It did go to a new home via Craigslist yesterday, but of course I had to be completely honest about the condition of the drawers.  I felt bad that I couldn’t really restore it to full usefulness and beauty.

But hey…it cured me of cruising the “free” category on Craigslist…at least for a little while!

***************************

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	A Little Knick Knack

The Handbuilt Bedroom, pt. 3 ~ The Dresser!

Today is my son’s birthday—the one I am creating “The Handbuilt Bedroom” for (see part 1 here and part 2 here).  His birthday pie has been started, and all that’s left to do now is to clean the kitchen—but I thought I’d rather blog about his bedroom instead!

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I sold everything out of his bedroom in one fell swoop!  The dresser, the desk, the chair, the bed, AND all the bedding…gone.

The boy was living out of boxes and sleeping on an air mattress.

So despite the fact that I’ve only built simple pieces like tables and benches, it became necessary for me to jump into something more complicated—like a chest of drawers (or dresser, whatever you’d like to call it)!

We had already planned out furniture placement in his room, and the chest had to fit on this little short wall next to the window.

Naturally I turned to Ana White for plans, but didn’t find anything that exactly suited mine—and my son’s—requirements for style and size.  So I altered the Wide Cabin Dresser plans to make a narrow cabin dresser instead.  Almost like I knew what I was doing! 

This is the completed frame of the dresser…

And this is the first drawer!  I was so excited.  I installed the slides and it all worked perfectly.

Call it “beginner’s luck.”

And that’s because it took ages to get the next three drawers to work.  Ugh.  Turns out I hadn’t been careful enough in selecting straight boards for the drawer boxes.  A word to the wise—when purchasing your boards, lay several down on the floor next to each other and see how the straight those edges are.  It helps!  But I didn’t do that for this project.

With the help of a few several well-placed washers, I was able to get everything shimmied around until the drawers opened and closed without falling off the tracks.  It was loads of fun. There is a reason Ana tells you not to attempt drawers as a beginner project.  But hey, you have to start somewhere.

Here’s my cruddy cell-phone picture of the dresser after I put on the drawer fronts (which is a two-person job) and painted and stained it.  The color was a little too bright for me, so I glazed over everything with black stain.

I “reverse stenciled” the numbers on the drawer fronts—meaning I stained the front first, then applied vinyl words before I pained over it.  I chose to stain the top and the bottom shelf because they’ll get the most abuse, and I think stained pieces handle it better!

I bought two of these baskets from Amazon for the bottom.  Someday I may “age” them a little, but that’s not today.  And the idea is to make tags for them that say “five” and “six” to continue with the number theme.

This dresser is oh-so-far from perfect.  The top drawer has a tendency to stick, for one thing…but it is keeping my son’s clothes off the floor (mostly), and let’s be honest…isn’t that all we’re really asking a dresser to do??

This is not the first time I’ve painted a red, numbered chest of drawers, I remembered!  You can see the other one here.

***********************

This project has been featured at The DIY Show Off, Elizabeth & Co., and My Repurposed Life.

*********************

 

Linking up here:

The Scoop!	Elizabeth & Co.
My Repurposed Life	Thrifty Décor Chick
Friday Remodelaholic	Common Ground
Sawdust Throwdown	Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Feature Friday
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off
Beyond the Picket Fence	Coastal Charm
Knick of Time	My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
From My Front Porch to Yours	All Star Block Party A Little Knick Knack

Foil Bombay Chest

So I have a wonderful friend who suffers from the same ailment I have…

furniture addiction.

Sometimes hers gets so bad that she feels a little overwhelmed (I don’t know WHAT that might be like), and she has to dispose of some furniture or be buried in it (seriously, not WITH it…IN it).
I try to help her out by transferring some of her stash from her house to mine.  Aren’t I a good friend??
Here is a piece that came home with me a few weeks ago.  And this is exactly what it looked like.

My friend was in the midst of trying to rescue it from a bad paint job, but it was a mess!  The paint was peeling off in places, and sticking like glue to others.  It was going to me a major pain in the pantooka to either sand or strip all that paint off—and it just didn’t appeal to me in the least!

 So I went with “Plan B.”

 Last summer I experimented with a foil finish for a couple of thrift-store nightstands—using real live aluminum foil!

You can read more about it here:  Bling for the Bedroom.

I had been thinking about it because, for whatever reason, this little project has been extremely popular on Pinterest lately!  It seemed like a perfect solution to covering up the bad finish without having to remove it all.

If you’re interested in more of a step-by-step description of the process, see the nightstand project, or check out the Ivy Cottage’s tutorial on covering her wall with foil (Amanda was my original inspiration).

Here I am slathering wallpaper paste and foil on this Bombay chest.  You have to press down firmly, doing your best to remove all the air pockets.  It’s tricky on details trim.

And a word of warning…tin-foil-cuts are every bit as painful as paper-cuts, and they happen a LOT more often!

Oooh…nearing the finish line!

Once the foil is on and everything is dry, scrub off the paste residue with a damp cloth.  There will be a lot of it.  Then use a drop or two of acrylic paint (straight up, not diluted) to glaze the surface.

I chose not to try to cover the feet with foil.  They are painted with Rustoleum Metallic Aluminum paint, and glazed with black in the hopes that they will “blend in” with the rest of the piece.

Ready for some beauty shots? 

It really shines in the sun!

The whole piece is covered with 3 coats of polyacrylic.  It gives a nice, smooth finish—but beware, it will always be a little fragile!

The knobs came from Hobby Lobby. 

So there you have it!  I think this would be a super fun piece for an entry, don’t you?

  

 *********************

************************************

This project has been featured at Apartment Therapy, Bless My Nest, and Beyond the Picket Fence.

***********************************************

Linking up here:

Domestically Speaking	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper	Thrifty Décor Chick
Friday Remodelaholic	2805
My Simple Home Life’s Simple Creations Friday	Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Feature Friday
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off
Beyond the Picket Fence	Someday Crafts
Knick of Time Mod Vintage Life	My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Perfectly Imperfect	{Primp}
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	All Star Block Party A Little Knick Knack
Cowgirl Up!	{aka} design Coastal Charm

Steampunk

Do you know what “steampunk” means? I certainly didn’t! I had to check out wikipedia’s definition and, of course, ask my husband once I heard that word being tossed around. As it relates to furniture, I have decided it means anything that is a little bit industrial, a little bit funky, and a lot of fun!

I started out with this chest of drawers that has been sitting in my garage for months. I have mentioned often that furniture “speaks” to me, but this one was strangely silent for a long time…

…Apparently, that’s because I wasn’t speaking it’s language!

Then one fateful day, I spotted this cute dresser at Twice Lovely:

…and I knew…

My chest of drawers, however, wanted to be black and distressed. It was an old piece to begin with, so I needed to work with that.

I purchased vintage valve handles from etsy. They came with the original dirt still attached! My love for ‘vintage’ ends there, so I ran them through the dishwasher.

I used 1/4” x 1 1/2” machine screws to attach the hardware. There isn’t much of a ‘neck’ on these valve handles to hold them away from the drawers, so they were a bit awkward to use. So next I purchased 1/4” nylon spacers to place between the valve handle and the drawer, and that makes them much more comfortable.

They handles are secured by 1/4” nuts on the inside of the drawer.

That’s all there is to it! But I love the fun, funky look of the piece. I think this would be fabulous in a boy’s room!

What about you? Have you jumped on the “steampunk” bandwagon yet?

********************************************************

Linking up here.

*******************************************************

This project was featured at Simple Home Creations, House of Hepworths, and Beyond the Picket Fence .