Refurbished buffet

Here is a recent refinshing project I took on.  I found this buffet at the local thrift store.  It was half off and it spoke to me.  I could see a shadow of its former glory. I had no use for another buffet.  I planned to just sell it when I was done, but I needed to save this piece of furniture. My husband thought I was nuts when I brought it home, but he politely kept it to himself.

I loved the wood grain on the top, the carved details, the art deco handles.  However, as you can see it was in pretty rough shape.  I figured I would have to paint the whole thing, but I was pretty sure I could give it a new life.  I started by peeling of the veneers on the drawers.  As you can see they were not good.  I did this by putting a damp flour sack towel on top of the veneer, and then putting a hot iron on top untill it got nice and steamy.  I then used a putty nive to peel it up.  This took some time and patience, but was pretty easy.  I kept a big bowel of water nearby to re-wet my towel.  Word of warning: this will stain your towel and leave a bunch of residue on your iron.  I have read that the iron will clean up nicely with some steel wool, but I frankly have been to lazy to try and I rarely use my iron for its intended purpose.  So use a towel you don't care about and an old iron if you have one.
Once the veneer was off I used a little wood filler to patch it up and sanded it down a bit. 

Even though I thought I would have to paint the whole thing, I went ahead and started sanding the top, just to see if it was salvageable, and boy am I glad that I did.  I started with 80 grit paper and worked my way up to 220 grit. It sanded down beautifully.  All the water marks and imperfections came out.  So I chose to stain it in a nice dark stain, Moorish Teak, from Zar. Since I already had the sander out, I gave the rest of it a quick sanding to rough it up.  I didn't worry getting it perfect since I was going to use my trusty Zinsser primer

Once the stain was dry, I started taping it off so I could paint the rest of it.  I used my  Zinsser primer so I wouldn't need to sand the entire piece.  Just make sure it is nice and clean.  I primed it and then gave it two coats of Vintage White in satin from Valspar.  I wanted to highlight the carved features of the piece, so I used asphaltum antiquing glaze from Valspar.  This was my first time using this glaze and I read a bunch about the best way to use it.  I opted to slap it on and wipe it off.  I was not a fan of this method on this piece.  It did highlight the carved details, but it also just made it look dirty to me.  It is a bit hard to tell in the picture below, but trust me.

So I repainted the whole piece again.  This time I sparingly used the glaze.  I put a little on the brush then brushed most of it off on a paper towel and then applied it to the detail areas and edges, using a cotton cloth to blend it all.  I was much happier with the results the second time around.

Finally I gave the whole thing, painted and stained surfaces, 3 coats of Varathane water based polyurethane and voila, an amazing piece.  It was hard parting with this piece, but it has already found a good home!

Upcycle a Frame into a MItten Rack

So it is late October, and here in Wisconsin, that means winter snow could be just around the corner, and that means wet, soggy gloves and mittens.  Our house is a beautiful arts and crafts style 90 year old home.  I love it!  I would love it even more if it had a mud room.  Alas,  I just have the side entrance which really just opens into the stairwell.  There is not a lot of room.  We have made good use of the space.  There are hooks for coats and pants and bags and a vertical shoe rack on one of the walls, but there really hasn't been a good place to hang those soggy gloves so they are dry and ready for another day of snowball fights in the morning... until now!

You will need:
Frame
ribbon
screw driver
drill
staple gun

This was so ridiculously easy and took less than an hour.  Probably more like 30 minutes.  I found this frame from at the thrift store for $1.50.  This frame is relatively thick. It sticks out from the wall about 1.5".  If you do this, you'll want to look for one about that thick or thicker, so you will have room to get the clothes pins on and off easily.

First you will want to reomve the wire and the d-rings the wire is wrapped around.  Throw away the wire but hang onto the d-rings and screws.  You will need them later.  I thought about painting this, but there is a lot of natural wood by our side entrance and it matched pretty well.  In truth, I was feeling lazy this day.  If you are feeling more industrious go for it and make it your own

Figure out how many rows of ribbon you want.  I opted for three, one for each person in out family.  Plus it seemed to be about the right spacing. Next flip the frame over and take some ribbon and staple it to the inside part of the frame.  I used inch wide gross grain ribbon because it is what I had laying around the house. This could be super cute with different colors of ribbon.  It would probably work with thinner ribbon as well. Just make sure it is wide enough for your staple to grab onto. You want to put the ribbon in the groove farthest from the back of the frame.  I had to put my staples angled toward the outside of the frame so they would not stick out the front. This meant I had to put my frame against the wall so that there was enough resistance for the staples to go all the way in.  Pull it tight and staple it to the other side. I cut ribbon longer than it needed to be so I would have enough leverage to really pull it tight.  It needs to be tight!  Do this with all your ribbons.

Next you are going to reinstall those d-rings you held on to.  You want to put them so they are on the sides of the frame, at the top but not poking above the top of the frame.  Drill some pilot holes and then screw them back in.

And you are done.  Hang that bad boy on the wall with some picture hangers (make sure to measure and level so it goes on easily), grab some clothes pins and you have a place to dry those gloves.

Empty Frames as Wall Art

After two years in our home we still have lots of empty wall space.  Buying art just doesn't seem to be a priority. Plus finding something both my husband and I agree on can be nearly impossible.  One day while watching TV (Longmire, I think),  I saw that the show's living room had empty frames on the wall as art.  I thought it was a fantastic and ecomnomical idea.  So I set about making it work for my space and convincing my husband that my wacky idea was a good one.  The example I saw on the TV just had three large frames painted three different colors.  My husband was not a fan of the tri-color idea, but he was open to the general concept.

I set about keeping my eyes open for frames at flea markets, garage sales, thrift stores etc.  I found three decent sized frames for $3 each and then raided the frame section at the thrift store during their 1/2 off sale. I ended up with 7 frames of varying sizes and shapes for less that $15.  I really should have taken a picture of them all before painting, but I got so excited to start I forgot.

Now the fun part.  I primed them, I like to use Zinsser 123 primer.  It sticks to just about anything without sanding.  Super helpful for making projects move along faster especially since some of my frames had shiny finishes. And there they are.

Next I painted them using the left over paint from our sun room, tying the color from there into the living room.  If you are going to buy paint for this project, I would consider spray paint.  This would have gone much faster with spray paint, but I wanted to use what I had on hand.  Mine needed two coats of paint.  You could stop here if you wanted, but some of my frames had details that I wanted to highlight so I rubbed them down with Valspar's antiquing glaze.  I have no magic solution for getting this right.  Just rub it on and off until you get the effect that you want.   I like a more subtle effect but you could go crazy with it if you want.  Here is my favorite frame with this treatment

Since these are just going to hang on the wall and not be handled, I didn't bother to put a coat of clear coat on them.

Next was arranging them. I traced each frame onto either wrapping, tissue or office paper and cut them out.  Then I hung  these templates on the wall so that I could move them around and be sure  about their placement.

Once I was sure, I marked on the paper where the hangers on the frame would be so that I could get my nails in the right spot. I nailed through the paper and then pulled the paper from the wall.  This worked phenomenally well.

And here they are on the wall.  One less blank wall staring at me and for less than the cost of one small peice of art.  

Laundry Bags and Catching Up

So it has been awhile since I posted here, and it has been quite a past ten months.  After I recovered from shoulder surgery in October and started PT for my hyper mobility issues, I went back to work.  Then in April I broke my foot putting me on crutches and unable to work or drive for nearly 2 months.  So here I am unemployed for the summer and with ample to time to be making things for and with my son, who is growing up way to fast.  He also out grew that egg allergy!!!!  No more modifying recipes.  I still have a backlog of recipes to share so I will try to add some from time to time. Since I am back to homemaking, for the time being, (I really did enjoy working until that foot put me out of commission) I thought I would start sharing some of the things I am doing. 

One of the things I learned during my hiatus from this blog is to make chores as simple and easy for myself as possible.  I think this is a good way to live whether or not you had to have your shoulder fixed.  Who wants to spend time and energy cleaning that could be spent playing? One of things I did to make things just a tinsy bit easier was replace my large hamper with two small hampers with bags.  This way my husband and I just sort our laundry as we put it in the hamper.  When one is full, I take the bag out, close it, roll it down the stairs, and wash it.  This way I am not carting laundry up and down the stairs for a day.  I do laundry more often but it isn't as big of a job.

I wanted to implement the same thing for my kiddo.  We do have a laundry shoot from his floor to the basement, but his laundry was getting mixed up with the wet dirty towels from the kitchen and cleaning. I had to bend over repeatedly to sort it all out.  Besides, I want to teach him a little about doing the laundry, responsibility, and independence.  He didn't want anything that would take up to much floor space, and it need to have a bag so I could roll it down the stairs. (I broke my foot carrying a laundry basket down the stairs.  Clearly I was scarred.)

Then I stumbled across this tutorial.  This is a fantastic idea:  laundry bags from a towel and men's pants hanger.  Her tutorial says that you can just throw your lights and darks in the wash together.  I can't quite make that leap, I still sort.  I just made two bags one from a dark towel and one from a white towel. I did run a cord through the pockets so I could close them.  They are ridiculously easy and I made two in less than an hour.  I also washed the towels before I sewed them so that I can just throw them in with the wash to prevent them smelling. Right now they are hanging in my sons closet but you could also put them on the back of the door knob or the wall.  I must say he is doing a great job with it, and it has made my life just a bit easier.