Category Archives: Fun Project Friday

Wooden Bench Make-Over

Hi everyone!

It’s Fun Project Friday!

How many times have you passed up a piece of used furniture that would be perfect for your home,  BUT… you didn’t buy it because it wasn’t the right color… or it needed some TLC… or it was grossly outdated?!?

That’s the kind of furniture I LOOK for… the kind of furniture I LOVE!!!

If it’s functional, has good “bones”, and is priced right… then you can bet it’s coming home with me!

Hmmmmmmm…. I suppose that would explain the mountain of inventory I have stockpiled in the barn, wouldn’t it?!?   😉

I stumbled upon this wooden bench at one of the local thrift stores, and when I saw the $4.99 price tag on it, I knew I HAD to have it!

Three months later, I finally figured out what I was going to DO with it…

Structurally, it was a very solid piece of furniture… but cosmetically- it was just plain U.G.L.Y. !

The first thing I did was to clean that baby up!  Then I took it completely apart.

There were tons of scratches and the finish was very worn, so the seat was sanded down to bare wood, stained, and a polycrylic topcoat applied.

The hardware for the legs were scrubbed and given a fresh coat of ORB spray paint.  The legs and supporting pieces were primed, painted with some soft blue chalk paint, distressed, and waxed.

It already looked sooooooooooo much better… but… it just didn’t seem to be “finished” yet.

So, I found a stencil…

Stencil

Stencil

 

 

 

 

 

…grabbed some painter’s tape…

Tape

Tape

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and stenciled away!

Remember the Before???

 Well… check out the After!!!

WHAT A DIFFERENCE!  I LOVE it!

Isn’t it amazing what a little bit of elbow grease, stain, and paint can do?!?

Don’t forget to CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE to LEAVE A MESSAGE and let me know what YOU think!

Enjoy!

Lynn

Oval Side Table

Hi everyone!

It’s Fun Project Friday!

I love finding treasures at estate sales! You can usually score some well-built furniture for a pretty fair price. Granted, most of the estate has already been “picked over” and divided up among family members first, but really… just HOW MUCH furniture can one person cram into their home?!? Never mind… don’t answer that! And, don’t ever ask my husband that question either- because he’ll just roll his eyes and laugh at you… ugh!

Anyway… other than keeping a few items for sentimental reasons, most of the furniture from an estate is set up for sale. And, since the family would rather sell it than store it, they are VERY willing to negotiate.

That’s how I found this oval side table. I really liked the height and decorative look of this table, but the veneer was in pretty bad shape. My best guess is that the table was previously used as a plant stand because there was some obvious water damage to the top. Much of the veneer was cracked in several places and had pulled away from the wood underneath.

I’m pretty sure the seller thought that it was damaged beyond hope- which is probably why he offered it to me at such a ridiculously low price. Heck… even my husband questioned why I was even considering it! I just told him to “trust me!“… and secretly hoped I wouldn’t be eating my words later!

I bought this table for two reasons…

1) I remembered reading that it was very common for furniture makers to place veneer over really nice wood when building higher quality furniture. Unlike much of the furniture built today, it wasn’t considered “cheap”, by any means!

and…

2) For the price I paid, I really didn’t have much to lose to find out if #1 was fact or fiction!

I recently mentioned this tidbit of information to my niece when she was debating on whether or not an old dresser she found tossed out to the curb was worth refurbishing. You can imagine her excitement when she discovered that underneath all that damaged veneer was a beautiful dresser made entirely of solid oak!

I couldn’t wait to see if MY “reveal” would be equally exciting! In fact, I was so anxious to see what was underneath the veneer on my side table that I forgot to take a before picture… but here are a few from just after I began working on it…

Oval side table- Before

Oval side table- Before

Once I saw the green and natural color striations in the wood, I knew that if the water damage was minimal, then I just wanted to preserve the beauty of this wood with a natural stain.

Oval side table top- Before

Oval side table top- Before

Unfortunately, the damage was too deeply engrained in the wood… Grrrrrrrrr…..

Oval side table- Removing veneer

Oval side table- Removing veneer

I was going to “shabby” it up, but decided to just give it a thorough cleaning and leave the table frame just as it was. The table top definitely needed to be stained, so after a good sanding, I used Minwax Jacobean stain and applied three coats of Minwax Polycrylic for topcoat protection. I probably should have used two coats of stain as well, but if you look closely, you can see that using a single coat actually allowed some of the green striations in the wood to show through… and I thought it looked pretty cool that way.

Oval side table top- After

Oval side table top- After

And here is the finished product…

Oval side table- After

Oval side table- After

I really like how it turned out, don’t you?

So, the next time you come across a piece of furniture that looks like it’s beyond hope… don’t give up on it! With some patience and elbow grease, that ugly duckling might just turn out to be your beautiful swan 😉

Don’t forget to CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE and LEAVE A MESSAGE… I’d love to hear what you think!

Enjoy!

Lynn

Desk Console Make-Over

Hi everyone!

It’s Fun Project Friday!

Well here it is… another piece of furniture that I picked up at a rummage sale… apparently just because THAT’S what project junkies DO!

I swear… it started calling my name before I even got out of the car! As soon as I walked up to it, I knew it would make a really cute console for an entryway (even though I didn’t even HAVE an entryway at the time!), and I just had to have it!

As you can see by the pictures below, the top was definitely in need of some TLC, but overall it was a pretty solid piece of furniture.

Desk- Before

Desk Before

I was afraid that the previous water damage was too engrained in the wood to be able to accept stain evenly, so I opted to paint the entire desk. I gave the whole thing a good cleaning, removed the hardware, and lightly sanded the top of the desk to even out any high spots.

I was so engrossed in this project, that I forgot to take pictures of each step…sorry!

After applying a primer, the desk was painted with a cream colored latex paint. One coat of crackle glaze was applied to the drawer faces and then they were painted with some sage green paint I had left over from another project. To give it a little extra pizzazz, I also dipped the bottoms of the leg spindles with the same sage green.

Desk- Painted

I really like the look of painted furniture “aged” with dark wax, but I wasn’t able to find it in any of the local stores. And… because I was too IMPATIENT to order it online and wait for it to be delivered, I started scouring the wonderful “world wide web” for alternative solutions that would give me the same effect. A couple of sites had actually recommended SHOE POLISH PASTE… of all things!

Well… since I KNEW I could get my hands on that item, I decided to give it a try! I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen, right?!? If I didn’t like it, then I would just start all over and repaint the desk… It’s not like I haven’t done THAT before!

It actually DID do a pretty good job of distressing the grooves and softening the look of the lighter paint color, but it was NOT a “FUN” task at all… in fact, I’m pretty sure I won’t ever use shoe wax again! Thankfully, I won’t have to because I’ve already added TWO dark wax mediums to my inventory 😉

Once the entire piece was waxed with a clear wax, the updated pulls were attached to the drawers, and TA DA!… a cute little console for somebody’s entryway!

Desk- After

All in all, I don’t think it turned out too bad, do you???

Please CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE and LEAVE A MESSAGE to let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

Lynn

Faux Apothecary 3-Drawer Dresser

Hi everyone!

It’s Fun Project Friday!

I was browsing through one of the local antique shops in town and found this small 3-drawer dresser. As soon as I saw it, I knew it had to come home with me! So I bought it…

3-Drawer Dresser- Before

3-Drawer Dresser- Before

I purchased the drawer pulls before I started painting, mainly because I wanted to match the paint to the knobs instead of trying to match the knobs to the paint.

Drawer Pull

Drawer Pull

The dresser was already stripped, so it really just needed a final sanding. I removed the wooden knobs, filled in the holes with wood putty, and gave it a good sanding. Once that was done, I primed everything with white primer.

3-Drawer Dresser- Primed

3-Drawer Dresser- Primed

And here’s where it got frustrating… I knew that I wanted to transform this piece into a faux apothecary chest. I did some research and it looked pretty easy, so I decided to give it a try. To get the 3 across-3 down pattern, I had to do some math to come up with the measurements for the frames.

I bought some really cool bamboo-looking trim at the local trim outlet. Then I began cutting the 90 degree angles to construct each frame. The PROBLEM was that I had only purchased three 8 foot pieces of this trim… which, unfortunately, was enough to construct just 8 frames… and I needed 9!

Naturally, I had chosen a trim design that was not one of their “stock” pieces, so I had to special order another one!

Two weeks later, I finally had all the frames cut and constructed. I chose the paint colors to match the knobs, then primed, painted, and distressed each one.

Next, I placed the frames on the drawers to get the correct spacing and traced the inside of each frame with a pencil. I ran painter’s tape along the pencil lines to mask off the inside squares, thinned down some dark acrylic paint with clear glaze, and used a cotton cloth to “wipe” it across the dresser and drawers. Once that was dry, I removed the tape and applied some crackle medium to the inside squares, then painted each square accordingly… to match the frame color.

Inside Frames

Inside Frames

I attached the frames to the drawer with glue and brads, drilled holes in the center of each color block, installed the new knobs, gave everything a good coat of paste wax, and…

Frame and Knob

Frame and Knob

Voila! A faux apothecary 3-drawer dresser!

Faux Apothecary 3-Drawer Dresser

Faux Apothecary 3-Drawer Dresser

Pretty cool, huh?!?

I think the only thing I would do differently would be to use a MUCH darker paint color for the dresser and drawers (oh… and to make sure I have enough trim BEFORE I start a project…) but other than that, I LOVE the way it turned out!

So… what do you think?!? Just CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE and LEAVE A COMMENT!

Enjoy…

Lynn

Shabby Vanity Bench

Hi everyone!

It’s Fun Project Friday!

I found this little bench at a rummage sale about 10 years ago (yes… TEN!). It was pretty solid, not at all wobbly, but definitely needed some TLC. The price was right, so I brought it home and finally removed the seat and sanded the finish down about 6 months later.

And that’s how it sat…

in storage…

for nearly 10 years!

Shabby vanity bench seat- Before

Shabby vanity bench seat- Before

Shabby vanity bench- before

Shabby vanity bench- before

Honestly, I don’t even know why I bought this bench… I had no purpose for it… no need for it… and no idea what I was going to do with it. But, when you’re a project junkie like I am, none of that matters! I saw what I liked, at a price I was willing to pay, and brought it home.

Well… I finally decided to drag this poor bench out of storage and give it the new life it deserved. Since it was already stripped (the HARD part!), all I had to do to prep it was give it a good cleaning. Once that was done, I primed it, gave it a fresh coat of paint, applied an antiquing glaze, and distressed it.

The dirty and worn out fabric and batting were removed from the seat and replaced with 2″ foam, fresh batting, and a piece of upholstery fabric that I found at Goodwill.

I couldn’t believe this was the SAME bench!

My husband is happy because this is one less thing in his “space”… and I’M happy because I actually competed another project!

I love the new look, don’t you?!?

Shabby vanity bench- After

Shabby vanity bench- After

Click on the link above to LEAVE A COMMENT and let me know what you think!

Enjoy…

Lynn

Lighted Glass Blocks

Hi everyone!

It’s Fun Project Friday!

I LOVE lighted glass blocks! If you have a Cricut (or similar personal cutting system), then the creative possibilities are endless- they’re fairly inexpensive to make, really quick to put together, and make great gifts for those hard-to-buy-for people in your life…co-workers, bus drivers, teachers, neighbors, friends and family!

Here are a few of my favorites…

BELIEVE Glass Block

BELIEVE Glass Block

LOVE OF FAMILY Glass Block

LOVE OF FAMILY Glass Block

HEAVEN Glass Block

HEAVEN Glass Block

All I did was clean and dry the block, spray with clear frosted spray paint, cut out and apply the vinyl, insert lights, and then add the ribbon and embellishments!

Simple… simple… simple!!!

An there you have it… a beautiful glass block for your home (or someone else’s) created for under $15.00 and in less than 3 hours! Don’t ya love it?!?

CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE and LEAVE A COMMENT… I’d love to hear what you think!

Enjoy!

Lynn

Hi everyone!

It’s Fun Project Friday!

I picked up this rocking chair at a rummage sale about 5 years ago with the intention of re-painting it for my granddaughter. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to digging it out of storage, she had already outgrown it! I told you I was a project junkie 😉

Anyway- the rocking chair was in great shape and very sturdy, so there was minimal prep work needed (MY kind of project!). I spent tons of time online researching whimsical style rocking chairs for kids and finally came up with a plan.

This is what it looked like before I started painting it…

Child's rocking chair- before

Rocking chair- before

Child's rocking chair- before

Rocking chair- before

The transformation was amazing… and so cute! Check it out at my other blog and let me know what you think… alittlebitwhimsy.com

Enjoy!
Lynn