Mass Wood working: February 2014

Monday, February 24, 2014

Beachy Subway Art and Beachy Dresser

So it was a pretty good day for sales last week. Since I dont have a store, I list my items for sale

on Craigslist. Ive actually done quite well. It might take a few weeks, but most everything sells.

I got a call from a lady who wanted my "Crack-house" dresser #2 and the little nautical table.

When she came over to pick them up, she mentioned she needed another dresser for her sons room.

I had this sitting in the garage awaiting my attention:

Heres what it looked like when I got it. (Sorry, I took these photos after the stripper had been applied)

The gloppy drip was there before I started. Some people should be forbidden to apply stain to wood.

I hate stripping furniture worse than root canals. Seriously.

This fun activity took about, oh, 4-5 hours. The mirror took most of that time. Horrendous.

I used my soy gel stripper. I raved about it on my "Frenchy Dresser" post. If you strip, then you

must get some of this. Its totally non-toxic (I dont even wear gloves) and cleans up easily with water.

And it works like nobodys business!! Trust me, you will never use anything else again.

This piece was pretty darn messed up. The finish was hideous, the original handles and keyhole plates were MIA, the drawers barely slid open and the bottoms were almost rotted away.

What sold me on the piece was the mirror. It was some gorgeous wood-work. And the beveled glass was beautiful. I knew I could work my magic on this piece.

And apparently, so did Tori. She saw it sitting there and asked if I could make it look "Beachy".

She wanted it blue with some white and yellow and distressed.

Cool. I hadnt done anything like that before so I told her Im in!

But first, a little help from Hubs,,,,,and Judy. How cute is this dog?? Mean Pit Bull??? Dont believe

it. She loves everyone. This is the best dog I have ever owned.

After he fixed all the necessary structural issues, I got busy.

I didnt have time to stage this gal in a vignette,,,so the garage photos will have to suffice.

Please dont shake your head at my crap filled garage,,,,it is my work shop!

She wanted white worked into the wood. I used ASCP Pure White on top, the mirror accents and on the body.

Forgive the quality. The light wasnt great and the garage floor gives off a blue tint in the photos.

The blue is my homemade chalk paint. I used MS "Mariner".

These top two drawers were not in the best of shape, so I lined them with fabric. All the sides of the drawers got painted. I think it just finishes the piece. Sometime you have to pay extra attention to the details.

In the interim of working on this dresser, I started on some subway art.

Yeah, yeah,,,Im only a year too late. WELL, i didnt get the memo!
And it appears as if Im the only one without a cricut or some other machine to make the lettering.
Hey! Im old, and I do it old school!

I had some fence lumber sitting around, so Hub cut it and attached them from behind. After a quick sanding, I mixed up 4 different colors and painted them on my "canvas".

Got my 2" and 3" letter stencils, and printed out the names of local Southern Calif beaches.

I just eyeballed everything. I traced out the stencil in pencil and them went back over them

by hand, painting each letter, using my homemade gray chalk paint.

Hey, Im in fron the camera for a change!

And heres what I ended up with:

I love how this came out! I was so surprised!

It did take many hours between penciling the words and then

going back and painting them.

Im aware of the vinyl reverse stencil method, but I didnt have the materials.

And I didnt want to wait. When I get an idea in my head, I just do it.

So, I had this sitting in the garage when Tori came by this afternoon to pick up her dresser.
She and her friend commented on how cute it was. My husband blurted out, "Its for sale!" LOL
She asked how much, I told her, and she said, "Ill take that too!" She ended up with four of my items!
It was a very good day!

I will definitely be making more of these puppies!

THE GREAT ADVENTURES OF MRS P white bedroom display

The Passionate Home and 4 the love of WOOD have teamed up for the summer to have some fun and

to bring you a grand story told through the Passionate Home store displays and shared through 4 love

of WOODs blog and both of our Facebook pages ... The first install can be read here.

And so The Great Adventures Of Mrs. P. continue ...

Carrie and I took another adventure this week with Mrs. P.

We decided to take a look inside her drawers and create her bedroom right in the middle of the shop,

with a glimpse of her taste in beautiful clothes and classic jewellery.

Ill bet if you have been in The Passionate Home you never saw all these amazing pieces.

I didnt see them until Mrs. P stepped through the front doors.

I personally have a white rabbit living at the end of my hallway and when I see him watching over

things it makes me feel a bit child like and happy. It doesnt matter how old we

get we can still remember how good it felt to have magic in our lives as a child.

Being a figment of my imagination Mrs. P must have great taste in furniture,

and this vintage solid oak cabinet with crystal door knobs doesnt disappoint.

Let me show you a close up of the ornate top ...

Every Sunday night after dinner Mrs. P carries all her candles one by one and sets them up

in the bathroom where the water runs for her long soak in the tub.

Im usually fighting for the remote on Sunday nights, how about you Carrie?

A local artist dropped off some new items while Mrs. P was visiting and I couldnt

help but include one of their lovely pink rose book marks with her bedside reading.

As soon as you have a chance please come into The Passionate Home and check out the

new bedroom display and see if you can see Mrs. P hanging out close by.

Our summer displays will only be lasting a week or two before we set out on another adventure

to discover the life and world of Mrs. P.

Thank you for following along and keep watching for our next journey.

We dont even know where Mrs. P is taking us!

Crack house Dresser Re do!!

So a few weeks ago I saw this dresser listed on CL. Hubs went by and took a look at it for me. It was wayyyyyy beyond needing some TLC. The lady said she got it from some crack-house with the intention of refinishing it! Um, dont think so! Hubs paid 15 bucks for this beaut.

I honestly almost said, "forget it" and trashed this hunk.

So glad I didnt! Im in love with how these colors turned out!

When he got it home I thought, "Good Lord! What the heck can I do with this?" Most of the guides of the drawers were gone and the bottom drawer fell apart when I took it out.

There was some sort of melted rubber stuck to the top.

Maybe used as a lion scratching post???? WTH??

I had to completely re-glue the entire bottom drawer. And for whatever reason, the front legs were different. Someone had shaved one side, and left the other original. We had to do some surgery to make them match.

So after a ton of sanding,
I uncovered a somewhat intact
wood top! Yay! It appeared to be a Honduran Mahogany wood, which has a nice reddish undertone to it. I refinished the top with a gel stain and sealed it with a shellac base seal-coat.

Heres the natural wood color. It wasnt in good enough shape to leave it, so I decided on very distressed look. Ive been wanting to try some different colors and I figured since I only spent 15 bucks, if it didnt work out, no biggy! So I made my own chalk paint again and used Martha Stewarts "yam" mixed with some other orange and golden yellow. I just coated the whole thing with that color and then went over it in MS "Hosta" mixed with "plumage" and a little green. I used a sanding block and went to town.

Everything got finished with Minwax dark wax, which really deepened the colors and brought out the wood tones beautifully!

Her front feet match now!

I lightly dry brushed the top with the paint (I had already refinished and applied a seal coat)

Urban Outfitter knobs

I couldnt reuse the original hardware because there wasnt enough.
So, I had to fill in the all of the inner holes and re-drill in order to accommodate
these pulls I got from Hobby Lobby.

And to think I was actually considering just throwing this away! Never think the impossible cant be accomplished!

I had fun doing this one!

Sunday, February 23, 2014

THE LONG ROAD TO BEAUTY black antiqued chest

This black chest started out as a second hand find George found last month.

It was one of those projects that went south right away.

I decided to get a better handle on the milk paint.

I did learn how to mix it better for the sprayer.

Over the course of that evening the paint started to flake ..... EVERYWHERE I had sprayed it!

This photo of the original drawer handle shows what was happening pretty well.

If you look closely its not chipping shabby chic style its flaking everywhere.

Fortunately I didnt spray the sides, which ended up saving me some time later.

I moved on to the hardware.

I didnt care for the style or placement of what came on it,

so I filled those holes in and found the right spot.

Searched high and low for a nice complementary set of 8 handles that would work.

But only found 2 sets of 4 so they had to be matched up.

In came the oil rubbed bronze paint by Rustoleum.

Now back to the drawers, measuring and drilling new holes.

Ill show you how nicely they turned out shortly.

Next thing needed was to remove the broken apron and do some repairs,

Before adding new legs bought at Windsor Plywood.

The milk paint was adhereing to the top surface better,

and was looking pretty neat with all the chipping and flaking that still occured there.

With a great amount of sanding and poly I got it to this point, and very happy with it.

So I decided to match up the sides to have the same look, but without using

the dreaded milk paint.

I used a black wash with regular paint and poly.

After a month of having it sit on the side lines it was now time to deal with the

crappy flaking paint on the drawer fronts.

So one morning I sat in the shade and hand sanded every inch of them,

before masking off the top and sides to get it ready for good ole primer.

and then a beautiful smooth black spray job.

New handles added,

a bit more poly and wax,

And she is shining like never before.

I did try out some distressing but both George and I liked the sleek black look better.

It has a great antiqued effect on the sides and top,

and with the wax and poly it is so soft and smooth.

She would make an excellent TV stand in someones living space.