Bedside Table Redo

For the next little while it's going to feel like old times around here, I have a bunch of super fun furniture re-do's that I'm really excited to share with you. I want to save some of the more impressive ones til later though so I thought we'd start with a cute little bedside table I made over for Catie.

We recently moved into a new house (a rental) and left behind my in laws furniture that we'd been using, including a bedside table for Catie. I wanted her to have a lamp beside her bed though and I scored this beauty for free. Sorry but its doesn't show the lovely original handles.

Since it was for Catie I wanted to do something I thought she'd really like so I painted it purple and added new glass knobs.

She loves it.  I let her choose the lamp and even though the purples don't really go I'm choosing to let it go because she loves it.

Gold Spray Painted Shells

Since I hung my gallery wall I've been wanting to add more gold to my house and finally came up with an awesome idea, to paint a sea shell.  I pitched the idea to Brad (I knew he'd care more about the shell than I do) and since it was a gift from his parents he wasn't too thrilled with the idea.  I dismissed it but once again my awesome Mom came through for me and gifted me three shells.  I figured three was a bit much unless I was going for a beach theme (which I'm not) so I only painted two.  They just turned out so incredible!

I apologize but I didn't take a picture of the star before, here's the shell though, pre paint.  It was a very nice shell, but just a shell, which is not my things.

I gave the shell 4 light coats and the star only took 2, in fact the bottom only needed 1.  These shells painted up so quick and perfectly that I think it was the most satisfying paint job I've ever done.

The star is so delicate, and these shells catch the light and shine like I didn't expect.

Before I painted I checked on Pinterest for the best gold spray paint and found this awesome blog post that took all the guess work out, she did all the hard work and this is her photo below.

I liked the Rust-Oleum best so that's what I used and I'd highly recommend it.

I put these both on my fireplace mantel and the only thing that would make them better is more gold!  I'm a little addicted.

Refinished Nativity

I think I've mentioned before that I have a beautiful Willow Tree  nativity that I love.  It was given to me in pieces over the years by my in-laws and one of the pieces included an unfinished wooden stable.  I've used it as is for a couple of years but this year I seem to be on the hunt for craft after craft but I don't have a ton of supplies on hand.  I did however have everything I needed to finish this project.

Here's what it looked like when I got it.  You can see I'd already started to stain the stand for the angel.

I quickly sanded any rough spots and then used a foam brush to apply a thin coat of stain.  I used the same stain I used on the top piece of our headboard so it didn't cost anything.

Here's the after.  I felt like it needed a little colour so I made this quick little pennant banner out of paper.  I think it makes it all pop a little.

Here's the entire set

Paint Tip

This summer I've done quite a bit of painting.  There were the Tall Chairs, the Bedside Tables and the Headboard.  This much painting is new for me but I did pick up two handy tips that I thought I'd share.

When you're painting you don't ever want your item to lay flat on a surface, you need it to be raised so your paint doesn't touch.  My Father-in-law has these handy little plastic triangles that you slip under the feet of your project so I decided I should get some too.  I went to Totem, asked about them and they looked at me like I was crazy.  I went home empty handed trying to think of what I had that I could use and I came up with these.

Really cheap plastic clothespins from the dollar store (you can tell from the picture they're well used).  Like I said above, you just slip them under your item to raise it off the ground and paint away.  If you get paint on them who cares?  They're from the dollar store.  I used them almost more than any other item during my projects.

My other tip is what I use for a paint drop cloth.  I went to Value Village and bought a sheet for $2.50.  I tried to buy the ugliest one I could find and I think it's awesome.  It makes me smile every time I pull it out.

 If you look really close you can see my clothespins under the feet of my chair.

Door to Headboard

It's finally finished, my door to headboard transformation!  Pretty hey?

Did you see the post yesterday about the bedside tables?  How about the price breakdown?

Let's build a headboard I said.  I pictured us pulling this project together in a day, maybe a week's time... that was back in the beginning of July and here the project is finally finished, two months later.  I can't believe the amount of time it's taken to finish.

As I mentioned yesterday this project also involved some rolling with the punches.  When I knew I wanted to make a headboard from a door I started some internet searches and found this one that I loved.  It looked so easy, cut the door to size, take two 4x4's router out a spot for the door, slip on the ends and then cap with some trim.  Done.

The door was so pretty I decided I'd stain it instead of paint so we looked into wood and anything good enough to stain was going to be ridiculously expensive.  At least $150 just for wood.  That led us to a different plan that ended up being just as expensive which led us back to the original plan but using cheap wood and paint instead.  That changed our wood price from hundreds to a mere $6.  We did use a little fir so we increased it to $18 but that was much more on the affordable side.

I decided for the bedside tables I'd stain the top and paint the rest and Brad suggested staining the trim piece on top of the headboard.  That seemed a little matchy matchy to me but when the bed side tables turned out to be less quality than I expected I scrapped the stain on them and moved it to the door instead.  That's why we bought the fir, better quality for stain.

So I got the door for my birthday and it leaned against the wall for a good long while looking like this.

While I waited for us to go to Calgary to use a router I took off all the hardware and sanded.

We finally went to Calgary and I forgot the camera so these next pictures all come from my iPhone.

We decided to use 2x4's instead of 4x4's so we carefully marked with pencil the area we needed to router.

Starter Home to Dream Home had the great idea of using a circular saw to give yourself some straight lines to follow so we did the same and were so grateful we did!  Here's Brad getting the saw ready.

And the boards cut.

Here's a top view.

He then very carefully followed those lines to router out the center

 until it looked like this.

We hadn't really considered the amount of sawdust this would create.  Look how hazy the air is and check out the floor, it was everywhere!

We then brought the boards home to try them out and see how we did (the door doesn't fit in our car so we can't really take it anywhere).  The width was perfect but sadly the height was an inch too short.  He forgot that the plans he made and used were for a different design so they weren't quite accurate.  Another trip to Calgary and the same procedure left boards that were actually the right size.

Then Brad had exams to write and the poor door continued to sit.

Finally we took the door down to our neighbors house where he cut it to the right length.  I love the makeshift worktable, and notice the level clamped to the door as their straight edge?

I decided to do my painting with the parts unassembled and then put it together once I was done so I took my supplies outside and started to prime one of my side pieces (this plan ended up being awesome and I recommend it).

Here's where I got really angry and threw the door around a bit.  Remember our routering?  We were so careful with our measuring and when we came home from Calgary we tested it and it fit like a glove.  While I primed one side piece my husband decided to do one last check of the routering now that the door was cut to size the pieces no longer fit.  Apparently the ends of the door were slightly skinnier than the middle.  I continued priming anyway and once it was dry we used the router my parents had loaned us to make our hole slightly wider.  This time we had no saw to make a straight edge and no clamp to hold it steady.  We drew a straight pen line for Brad to follow, I stood on the board, Brad knelt on the sidewalk and eyeballed.  We only routered the back so the front still has a nice straight line.  It was a pain but the pieces actually fit now and I could continue on.

I primed with two coats that I put on with a sponge roller.

Using the same Heirloom White as the bedside tables I spray painted the pieces individually

While they dried I pulled out the stain.  We had purchased a piece of fir to use as trim on the top so I got ready to tackle that.  I've never used stain before and surprisingly did very little research into working with it, I just brushed it on.  I'd expected to wipe it off but it looked so beautiful I left it as is.  Brushing it on seemed a little like magic.  It was a boring piece of wood and after 3 coats of stain it ended up so pretty.  I probably wouldn't have needed quite as many coats if I had used some sort of wood conditioner first but I have lots of stain so it was no big deal.  The piece on the right shows what I started with.

The paint dried and it was time for the fun part, time to finally turn this door into a headboard.  We used 3 screws on both sides (for a minute there we were sure we needed the drill bit we broke on this project but in the end we needed one slightly smaller.  We drilled pilot holes for the first 3 screws and then our bit broke and we just skipped the drilling.  The screws all went in with no trouble.  We had planned on using wood glue and then screwing but honestly we forgot the glue and it's held nice and tight so we're leaving it.

Check it out, it actually looks like a headboard here!  Just needs some glaze and a cap piece on top.

I won't go into too much detail about the glaze since I talked about it yesterday but here's a before and after the glaze.  The sun was obviously in different places in this photo but you get the idea.

While the glaze dried we got ready to attach the headboard to our bedframe and this is where we discovered that our frame doesn't have any parts to attach a headboard.  We tried to buy some but they weren't what we needed.  In the end Mom came to the rescue.  She offered to swap bed frames with us since she doesn't need to attach her headboard.  We were so grateful that we drove over there almost immediately.  This caused a pretty major problem that I'll talk about in a minute.

We lined the frame up with the headboard and marked where our holes needed to be, then we drilled and used bolts and washers to attach everything nice and secure.

We put the bed back together and it was pretty clear that the headboard was much too tall.  Our original bed frame was one that sat really low, it was only 3 inches off the ground.  We've lived in a couple places that have no storage so we had purchased bed risers to lift it up to a better height for us.  It made it a little taller than average but not hugely high.  The risers went to Mom with the bedframe though so we now have a bed that is standard height meaning it's a little lower than when we measured for the height of the headboard.  We decided it needed to be 4 inches lower.

We left it for the night but in the morning we moved the bed, unscrewed the headboard and moved it outside again.  We borrowed a saw, a square and a clamp, cut off 4 inches and then re-drilled our holes.  We brought it back inside started to put in our bolts only to find that the holes didn't line up properly.  Here's where I sat on the floor and cried a little.  I'm now so completely frustrated with the headboard that I don't love it like I should.  It's done and it's in the room but I can hardly bear to look at it because of all the troubles we had.  Hopefully this feeling wears off soon.  While I sat frustrated, completely unable to do what needed to be done, my wonderful husband took it outside, re-drilled the holes again and we re-attached it.

The piece of fir wasn't actually attached though.  We've been waiting until we can borrow a nail gun with a compressor so those nails will almost disappear and we don't need to worry about covering them.  It allowed us one final change just when we thought it was finished.

One thing I always wanted was for the fir piece to be thicker but it's a lot more expensive and not as easy to find something other than 3/4 of an inch.  We decided to add a second stained piece on top to give us the height without the huge expense, we only added an extra $12 and I officially love it.  Now I walk in the room and I'm happy to see that all the work paid off.

Here's a reminder of what I started with and then some different angles of the bed.  These pictures also show the bedside tables that I posted about yesterday.  I think they make a really nice set and after cutting off the 4 inches I'm really happy with the height.

I moved the pillows on one side so you can see the full headboard.

Here's a closer view of the bedside table with the headboard.

Here's a close up of the two stained pieces

It feels awesome to finally have this project done and it feels so great to have a grown up bed.

Before the new Headboard

and After

You featured me!

Refinished Bedside Tables

As promised yesterday, here is the post about the tables.  If you missed the post about the price breakdown check it out here.

All dressed up with new knobs.

Before I get into it a quick word about my before picture.  Sometimes I read blogs and they talk about how they forgot to take a before picture and in my head I think, "You're a blogger, how did you forget a before picture?"

Well, I forgot a before.  All I have is this crappy photo of the entire room.  I'm so ashamed.

Hard to tell but the drawer pulls are all dangly.  Okay, onto the transformation.

The theme of this project, as well as the door seems to have been adaption.  My original plans fell through but I was able to adapt them into something else I loved and I'm very happy with the results.

The plan for the bedside tables was to paint them but leave the top stained, like this picture.  I love this look so I was excited to try my hand at re-creating it.  I pulled the bedside tables outside to sand and get ready and noticed that they're not quite as solid as I first thought and they're made with a wood veneer.  I'm not willing to put a lot of time into staining a veneer so instead I decided to paint the entire thing and incorporate the stain on the headboard instead.  In the end I was so grateful I didn't stain the top, these were a pain to work with and I was happy to not have to worry about carefully taping and staining and spraying.

So I removed the handles and sanded them using a palm sander.  Honestly, I didn't sand them all that well because I hate sanding almost more than anything else.  I did make sure to wipe them down really well using a dry cloth first and then a damp cloth.

I then primed them and primed them again.

 

I wish I had used one more coat of primer, I probably would have gotten better spray paint coverage and used less paint if I'd done one more coat but they were such a pain to paint that I got a bit lazy.  Lesson learned though, spray paint is expensive and primer is cheap.

Once they were all primed I sprayed and sprayed using Rust-o-leum Heirloom White until I ran out of paint.  Then the project stalled for a week and they sat in our entry way while I found more paint.

On this project I had a bit of a miserable spray painting experience.  I already mentioned that I was forced to pause between coats of paint since I ran out and it was after they dried that I noticed they had the texture of sand paper.  It was really horrible and not usual for spray paint.  It led to me having to sand again, which as mentioned above, I hate.  Since I've never had this problem I wrote an email to Rustoleum, they responded by telling me I stood too far away.  I'm positive this wasn't the case, I even measured the distance when I put on the last coat.  I live in a very windy city which means if anything I tend to stand too close to my project, I feel certain I had a defective can.  There were also spots where it seemed like the paint wasn't mixed well even though I shook and shook.  Since it was a white paint you could see brown spots in certain places.  I'm glazing so it's not a big deal but I'm not super impressed.  I didn't have the same problem with my last can.  I would have appreciated a better response from Rustoleum and I would love to stop using their product but my wallet doesn't allow it.  A can of Krylon paint is $5.99, a can of double cover Rustoleum (meaning it's 2 cans in one) is $6.99.  Anyway, enough about my spray paint problem...

I finally got the paint, finished that part and then waited until the door was together and painted so I could glaze them at the same time.  At least I could move them from the entry way back up to the bedroom (sans handles) where they sat for a month and a half.

The door finally turned into a headboard so I could go ahead and glaze.  I've never done this before so I read lots of internet tips and started the project feeling a bit like an expert.  I had anticipated that things would change and I would realize I knew nothing about glazing but surprisingly things went pretty much as I had expected without any hitches. Glazing is easy.

I used Behr brand Faux Glaze and Rust-oleum Espresso paint.  The instructions said to use 4 parts glaze to 1 part water.  I decided I'd want about half as much glaze as primer and I used an entire can of primer.  I took the size of the can of primer, divided it by half and then again by 4.  That told me how much 1 part was, it ended up being around 125 ml.  Then I took a plastic cup and filled it with 125 ml of water and drew a line with a sharpie.  Then I filled it with another 125 ml of water and drew another line so I had a 1 part line and a 2 part line.  This gave me something to measure with.

I took a bucket and added one part paint and it was the most beautiful chocolate brown colour, then I added my 4 parts glaze, stirred and ended up with this.

Not sure if your monitor will show you exactly what I saw but to me it looked pretty purple.
At this point I was nervous that I was about to paint everything purple but I was determined to push forward so I took a foam brush and lightly brushed some paint on a small area, then I took a rag and wiped it off.  I didn't want very much glaze (especially since it was purple) so I wiped off almost as much as I could.  I mostly left the glaze in the cracks.  I'm really pleased with my results and it does not look purple.  Two things I'd do differently next time though, I would have glazed with a black paint to avoid the colour above and I also had WAY too much glaze!  You put so little on that you can't even tell I made a dent in my bucket.  I should have used a quarter less and I still probably would have had too much. Now I have a ton of glaze left and nothing to do with it.

Here's an unglazed drawer beside a glazed drawer.  Not a huge difference but just enough to make them pop a bit.  The wood grain on these tables really picked up the glaze nicely.

After this all that was left was to clear coat it with Varathane and attach the new hardware and it was done.

One more crappy before to go with an awesome after.

Come back tomorrow and I'll show the door to headboard transformation and you can see these in the room.