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Side Table Makeover

Mar 202013

This one of those projects when you wonder what took you so long to get around to it when it’s finally finished. I discovered this little side table (makes me think of a cigarette table) at the local habitat for humanity months and months ago. It was in fairly rough shape. The finish was worn and it had plenty of dings and bumps, but I just loved the skinny legs and overall shape of it. So then I purchased it and it sat by our front door in it’s original state as a catch all f.o.r.e.v.e.r. Then I moved things around (as I do frequently) and the little table found it’s way into my bedroom where it sat for awhile longer. Maybe looking at it every morning as I got out of bed finally motivated me to make a decision about what to do with this little sucker.

Pardon the so-so pictures, we have terrible indoor lighting in this house and it was nearly impossible to get a true representation of the new color on the table. In real life it has more green and is a nice rich teal color.

Due to the state of the finish and general condition of the table, it would have been close to impossible to get a “like new” appearance so I decided to go with a slightly distressed look. First, the bottom shelf and legs had to be repaired. The shelf had a split across the middle and a couple of the legs had started to separate as well. A good amount of wood glue and clamps corrected all those problems without too much effort. I let it sit overnight before moving onto the next step.

My plan was to paint it with some DIY chalk paint and I know supposedly no sanding is needed, but I can’t help it. A light sanding with my palm sander made everything all smooth and ready for paint. Next, I made some homemade chalk paint using a recipe I found here. She actually reviewed three different DIY mixtures and her favorite was actually a different mixture then the one I went with. The reason for this? I already had everything on hand and she didn’t hate this recipe, it just wasn’t her favorite. It’s super simple…

3 parts paint
1 part plaster of paris
a little water

I had previously purchased a sample pot at HD in the color of choice and only used about half of it when creating the chalk paint. The paint went on smoothly and dried quickly. The only modification I would make for next time would be to add a bit more water to create a slightly thinner paint. After three thin coats it was completely covered. It was dry to the touch within an hour, but I let it dry a little bit longer before beginning the sanding/distressing process.

The paint sanded off super easy, but due to the thickness of my paint mixture I did put in a little extra elbow grease on the top to get it complete smooth to the touch.

Even in the daylight the paint still looks more bluish than it is real life. Oh well, try to picture a darker more tealy color (I’m all about using technical terms ). With sanding complete I wiped everything down and brought it inside to apply the wax. Before waxing down the table I did a little clean up job on the drawer pulls. They were super dirty, but after some scrubbing with the always stinky Brasso they looked super shiny. As shown in the before and after photo below..

Now that the little table was ready to wax I did a little more research on what would available both locally and within my budget. I’ve read great things about Annie Sloan’s wax, but it’s just a little outside my budget at the moment. So after a some research, I found that several others recommended watching this video tutorial here. She provides details on the different types of wax, availability and how to apply. With all that new knowledge fresh in my brain, I went with an easy to find paste wax. The simple style of table with all of it’s straight lines and flat surfaces wouldn’t require a softer wax.

I applied three really thin coats and let it sit for a couple of days before setting it down in it’s new home next to the bed. It replaced the tiny little table I’ve had been using for so long. Like I said it’s one those “Why didn’t I do this sooner?” projects. Overall, I loved working with both the DIY chalk paint and wax finish. My next project will most likely involve staining another thrift store find and I can’t wait to experiment using wax as the top coat

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The Faux Shag Rug

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Jul 242012

There are a couple of spots in the house that are just crying out for some rug love, like the dining room, my son’s room & my daughter’s room. Both the dining room and my son’s room have laminate or some wood type flooring (no two rooms in this house have the same type of flooring – too weird) and rugs would help with trapping dirt along with providing some much needed noise dampening. In my daughter’s room she really wanted some color to break up the beige carpet & beige walls and by color I mean either pink or purple.

So I have been on a rug shopping/searching mission for m.o.n.t.h.s. and just haven’t been able to find the right rug at the right price. Of course, the right price is a fairly low price. Like really low. But everything was either too big or too small or just too expensive. Very frustrating. Who knew finding nice, inexpensive rugs could be such a challenge? Not me obviously. My previous rug shopping experience was fairly limited and I think I started out with some serious false expectations.

After several weeks of seriously looking (online & in stores) I had basically given up for the time being. I figured I would just have to wait until my budget allowed for something more expensive or jump on something if the magic rug showed up in front of me. Well, one kinda sorta did. I was shopping at GW when I spotted this hot pink furry/shaggy fabric hanging among some towels and bath rugs. The color caught my eye first, but then I noticed the texture and realized it would be perfect as shag rug. It wasn’t thick enough to stand alone, but then another thought popped into my head. Why not wrap it over an existing rug and make the perfect inexpensive rug? There was plenty of fabric (about 3 or 4 yards) and it was only $4 bucks.

Up close shot of the fabric. I had a really hard time getting the pink show up correctly, but you can get an idea of the shagginess.

It took another couple of weeks before I found the right size base rug and when I spotted one I snatched it up quick. I live fairly close to a Habitat for Humanity, so I like to visit it about once a week. While on one trip, I found this rug for $8. Perfect. Even more perfect was that when I went to check out rugs were on sale for half off, so I only paid $4. Awesome.

I brought it home rolled it out, vacuumed and fabreezed it. Then I took the fabric and laid it on top just to be sure I had enough. There was plenty. Yeah.

Now I flipped everything over and busted out the duct tape. I taped the ends first pulling it tightly without causing the base rug to curl. Then I worked my way down each side.

With the taping complete, I flipped it back right side up to check it out. Everything looked good, so upstairs it went into my daughter’s room.

Ta-Da! It is super soft and fits perfectly into the space. My daughter will love it. She’s all about things being super soft and cuddly, so this is checks all the boxes for her. Pink. Soft. Furry. And, so far it’s holding up great. I’ve pulled it around the room, rolled it up and shifted it back and forth several times without any of the duct tape releasing. Now if only I can find two more perfect rugs for $8 each…seriously doubtful.

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Thrift Store Chair Makeover – Part One

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Jul 062012

We had visitors most of this week, but I managed to squeeze in a little chair makeover while they were here. This chair was purchased about a month earlier as part of my “you don’t spend birthday money on bills” shopping trip. It was something I liked but didn’t really need or at least I thought I didn’t. It sits up here in my sewing room/office where I thought it would get used occasionally, but my kids actually use it all the time…even before the makeover with the super saggy seat and all. Now I’m on the hunt for another one in a similar style so that I’ll have two and won’t have to force the kiddos to share it.

Here it is before…

It is in fairly rough shape, but I really just loved the shape and how comfortable it was to sit in (aside from the super saggy seat). The first part of the project is recovering the seat and eliminating the super sag.

Step One: Remove the original dust cover. My son actually helped with this step as it took a long time to remove the bazillion staples securing the dust cover to the bottom of the chair. We attempted to remove them with a staple remover, but had zero luck with that method. Next came a small flat head screw driver, hammer and some pliers. I would work the screwdriver under the staple with the hammer and then my son would pull it out with the pliers. Repeat many times over. We worked carefully and the dust cover was removed in one piece to be used again after all repairs were complete.

Step Two: Remove the seat & old fabric cover. Using a philips head screw driver I removed the 4 screws that held the seat in place and it came of easily. Hmmm, I wonder why the seat was sagging? Could the dry rotted, broken straps be a clue? That’s what it looked like when the cover was pulled back. Obviously, this guy had seen better days.

Step Three: Remove fabric from the seat. I can’t begin to tell you how many staples were used to apply this fabric to the plywood bottom and because the fabric was in such poor condition it basically tore off leaving most of those staples behind. The piping held together better and I was able to pull most of the staples out that held it in place.

Step Four: Repair the seat strapping. The original straps were useless. They were literally falling apart in my hands which made them difficult to remove completely. Using the pliers I removed as much of the originals straps as possible. Normally you would probably use jute webbing here, but because I had the polypro webbing on hand it did the trick and didn’t cost me anything. Not that jute webbing is expensive. I believe I found it at JoAnn’s for .79 cents a yard, but the polypro will hold up just as well and it was free.

The new webbing straps were stapled into place along with the original canvas cover. I created a basket weave pattern to replace the original 3 horizontal straps as I figured it would provide more support.

Step Five: Revive the original foam cushion. The original foam was still perfectly functionally with some wear on the outer edges, so to resolve the problem I just covered it with a double layer of high loft batting to revive it just a bit. While stapling this, I began to understand why there were so many staples in the seat previously. The rounded shape of the seat requires a crazy amount of staples to keep everything smooth and pulled tight.

Step Six: Create a new fabric seat cover. Using what was left of the original seat cover I was able to use it as a pattern for the new seat cover. It was really tattered, but it was still enough to give me the general shape of the pattern without me having to do any measuring.

Step Seven: Attach new seat cover. Staple, staple, staple and then staple some more. I stapled along the straight edge first and then pulled it tight to staple again at the top of the curve. Once those were in place I just worked my way (slowly) around the entire seat.

Step Eight: Create new piping. I really liked the piping detail that was part of the original seat cushion, so I knew I wanted to create new piping to replace the old. Piping can be purchased at your local fabric store. I picked mine up at JoAnn’s and used a 40% off coupon, so it was only something like .25 cents a yard. It is super easy to create & sew piping. I cut 3″ wide strips and folded them in half lengthwise. You place the piping inside along the foldline and then using a zipper foot, sew the piping into place. That’s it.

Now you repeat step seven and staple, staple and staple some more to get the piping in place. I found it helped to clip the piping at the 90 degree turns so everything would lay nice and flat. Of course, I completely forgot to take a picture after it was all stapled in place, but I’ll be sure to show an up close when I reveal the completed makeover in part two.

The new seat cushion is now ready for use. Stay tuned for part two where the rest of the chair receives a well-needed facelift as well. I’m loving the finished look.

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Simple Outdoor Chair – Beefed Up

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Jun 242012

Now that we’ve moved to northern Colorado we spend quite a bit more time outdoors. Summers in Texas were usually spent hibernating inside to avoid the 100+ degree heat (although we hit 100 here yesterday – what’s up with that?) or at the local pool trying to stay cool. Our back deck stayed vacant most of that time due to the combination of crazy heat and the bajillion mosquitoes attacking the moment you stepped outside. But now that we usually have more reasonable temperatures during the day and pleasant evenings paired with no mosquitoes, we spend significantly more time on the back deck. This means our portable, fold up canvas chairs just won’t cut it anymore.

The first chair I put together was for the boyfriend because he spends more time than anyone else just relaxing on the back deck. It’s his favorite spot to chill out after a long day at work.

The plan I based it off of was the Simple Outdoor Chair from Ana-White.com. Instead of going with 1×4 lumber it was beefed up to use 2×4 and 2×6 lumber. I also increased the width and height to create something more comfortable for the big & tall boyfriend.

The seat cushion was a bargain to create by purchasing a couple of outdoor cushions at the local goodwill for $4 a pop. They were the perfect size. I couldn’t believe my luck. I simply took them apart and used the foam from two of them to create a nice fat seat cushion. The fabric isn’t indoor/outdoor because I just couldn’t find anything that I really liked in that section. This fabric should do fine in the rain, but will probably fade sooner than a treated fabric. I do have some Scotchgard on hand, so maybe when I’m feeling ambitious I’ll spray it down.

The plan was to also sew a back cushion, but the boyfriend preferred to go without one. This works because it leaves me enough fabric to sew another cushion when I get around to building my own chair. Which will hopefully happen before the end of summer, because something tells me we’ll be spending a lot more time indoors during the winter months than we ever did in Texas.

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The Simple Four Poster Platform Bed…aka the Princess Bed

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Jun 062012

This bed was super simple to put together and inexpensive to build, if you don’t count the cost of all the bedding. It was a birthday gift for my now 5 year old daughter. Five. Years. Old. My little baby girl is no longer a baby anymore. She doesn’t even allow me to call her ‘my baby’. The correction comes almost as soon as the words leave my mouth. “Mom, I’m not a baby. I’m a grown-up girl.” Sigh.

Anyways, back to her new bed.

Pretty cute, huh. I have a more tweaks to make before I’m completely satisfied, but they are only little things I notice. Not the birthday girl, she loved it.

My daughter loves pink as demonstrated on these little projects, here and here, but for her new bed I wanted to create something that would grow with her without being too over the top. That is why there are hints of pink versus an all pink bed. The sheets are hot pink too, so when the bedspread is pulled back there is more of a pink explosion.

Before we moved, her bed had been a simple loft bed that I built from these plans. But I tore it down and donated the wood, so no bed frame for baby girl once we arrived in CO. This is what her room looked like before the bed (and a really good cleaning)…

Can you even spot the bed amongst all the chaos? As you can tell, she definitely needed something and the idea popped into my head a few days before her birthday that a new bed would be the perfect gift. With that decision made, my first task was to find her new bedding, this included both a comforter and sheets. After a long night of browsing online, I found what I wanted and ordered it. Lucky for me everything arrived on her birthday. Whew.

Now that bedding was on the way, it was time to find a bed plan that was both simple and inexpensive to build. I was on a serious budget and the bedding took a big chunk out of that. How can fabric sewn into a simple rectangles be so expensive? I just don’t get it. Back to the bed plan searching. My daughter would have been happy with her original bed, but I wanted something that was going to work for the next 10 years not two, which meant compromise.

I was thrilled when I came across this plan and the pure simplicity of it. As soon as I saw it, I knew what I wanted to do. Build the basic platform and then create the look of a four poster bed. The inspiration for the four poster actually came from a photo in the plans from her original bed.

The platform was super simple to build, even with a few minor modifications. I used 4×4′s for the legs, increased the overall height (28″) and built the platform to the actual width of the mattress.

To create the the 4 posts, I used 2×2 lumber cut to 7′ in length. The create the two foot boards, a 2×2 was screwed into each end of the platform (after bed skirt was in place, so I did screw through the fabric). The head board was created with a 1/4″ thick mdf handipanel cut to length & then nailed into two 2×2 boards (you can see those in the photo below, before they were nailed together).

Once I had the headboard assembled, everything (end posts & headboard) was spray painted white. The next day I used 1″ foam along with a sparkly hot pink piece of fabric to finish off the headboard. The fabric is just pulled tight over the foam and stapled to the back of the mdf panel. Sorry I don’t have any in progress photos. I was working under a serious deadline.

The mattress and bed skirts were put into place before attaching the headboard and end posts. The polka dot portion was made from the flat and fitted sheet that came with the comforter. The flat sheet was halved lengthwise and then halved again to create two panels for each side. The end panel was cut from the fitted sheet. The solid black is the actual bed skirt that also came in the package.

After I attached the posts, the work of figuring out how to hang the drapes began. Originally, I drilled holes at the top of each post and had planned to have the rods just sit inside those holes. That plan fell through soon after I put the first rod into place. As soon as there was any movement on the bed the rod fell out. So after thinking and thinking some more, I came up with the idea of bending the original hardware that came with the rods. Using some pliers I bent each piece about 90 degrees back, so the hardware would wrap around the post and place the hook in the proper position. The panels hang great now, but I have to go back and cover the hardware in white paint. You can see some of the gold shine at the top of the two end posts in the photo below.

And, that’s about it. The princess bed was complete and the birthday girl was completely surprised by the whole thing, even though she knew I was up in her room working on a birthday surprise for a couple hours. Thankfully, she never put it all together and my son did help with keeping her distracted as I carried pieces up into her room. Lots more to do in her room like sew new curtains, repaint her pink bookshelf to white and find her a fun rug in shades of pink (of course), but I’m happy another big project is off the to-do list.

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