Reveal Monday: Coffee Table

A while ago I told you about my "new" coffee table  and how I stained the top and began painting the bottom. Just to refresh your memory, here is the during (two old coffee tables pieced together)

AND the after...

Oh. Hi Soph.

Lets ignore the fact that while I was priming the shelves from our hutch, I got a little primer on the top's edge. Shhhh. Any suggestions on how to get primer off of stain? I know, don't paint on your stained coffee table top. I have had this foolproof method of covering the table top with a cut open trash bag, it fits perfectly kinda well. I will probably still use that method but I will be more careful. 

Because I am not having as much time to do projects as I have in the past few months, I am going to be posting reveals of projects only on Mondays. And hopefully, every Monday. I even have a few forgotten projects that I will try to sneak in. 

Is anyone else really bad about getting true before shots of projects? I could have sworn I took one of my hutch, but I can not find it anywhere. Booo. Oh well, I will be sure to take an "in progress" shot. Maybe. It's so ugly, it may not deserve a before. We will see. 

Here are some more living room shots with the new table...

Link Parties:
Mod Mix Monday

Progress Week Days 2-4

Let's be honest, 3 of those days were Memorial Day Weekend and I didn't do much but walk and go to BBQs. Oh yes, I did stain my coffee table top (from my pieced together coffee table) It stinks. I almost cried. I used Minwax Bombay Mahogany and it came out bright red. My mom talked me off the ledge (over the phone) and I decided I would try another coat. Worst case scenario I would sand it and paint it. So after two coats it still looked like it belonged in a room with a duck wallpaper border (not that there is anything wrong with duck wallpaper borders, just not for us.)

Bright. Red. Horrid. This picture was taken after I had sanded it a bit (hence the light spots.) I had used the polyshades 1-step stain for the first two coats. As a first time stainer I thought it would be easier. I didn't love it, it was sort of gunky. So for coat #3, I went with a different color (dark walnut) and used the plain ole Minwax wood finish stain. The picture doesn't show much difference, but here it is...

I think I like it more? One more coat and I will know! Otherwise it's getting painted white like it's base.

Before 

Primed

I'd also like to give a special shout out to Sophia, who is now having a growling dream next to me, but spent the day "helping" me. 

Thanks Soph.

Daybed Love Seat

I have just finished my 3D design course at school. For our final project, we had to create a chair from found materials and it had to be life sized. Since this is my second time around with the whole school thing, I have learned not to make projects that I can't do anything with, if I can help it! So, I decided the newly built chair would be for Sophia. DUH!
So I took the day Saturday to drive around to find a discarded something to make a chair out of. He said we could start from a chair, as long as we altered it. I ended up finding this bed at EcoBuilding Bargains for pretty cheap. It came with the headboard, foot board and the side rails, and was in decent shape. WOOO! I should have turned around and re-donated the side rails, because they attacked my arm in the car later that day, boooooo.

Headboard

Footboard

I brought it to my parents garage to butcher it. I needed to cut the foot board in half (and fast, my dad was out for a bit and I was afraid he would convince me my idea was not thought out yet, he would have been correct.) So I cut the foot board in half for the "arms" of the love seat with an electric jig-saw. Cut first, ask questions later.

It was not as simple as I had originally thought. The top of the "arms" hit above the square leg, I needed them to sit flush. Thankfully, my dad came home and intervened a little bit. He helped me decide where on the arm's legs I should cut. I wanted the end of the leg to be tapering in, not out. I don't know why, just did. I cut them off with a small coping saw, because it was a small cut and I felt that I had a bit more control that way.
To attach the sides to the headboard, I used the existing slots (where the rails would go into) and cut slots in the back of the sides to biscuit join them together.

We let the sides set in place overnight.

Then, we used scrap wood, cut at a 20 deg angle, and screwed to the inside front of each side and to the inside of the back legs, to screw the seat to. It made the whole structure much more "sound." We routered the front end of the plywood seat, to soften the edge. I also cut down the arm posts, they were just too tall, and sort of screamed "this seat used to be a bed." The finials on the back were loose. I started looking for new ones but didn't find any soon enough, so they are loosely placed on the posts. Maybe they will stay, maybe they will change, who knows?
The structure was done. I had not like the color/finish/floral motif on the bed to begin with, but now that it looked really bad. My dad suggested just painting over the floral layer of wood, but I couldn't do it half way. So I primed & painted my heart out. I decided to leave the top of the arms wood, I would like to stain them a bit darker. But, for deadline purposes, that will happen later. I made a little seat cover out of drop cloth, not perfect but it works! Another addition I would like to make is a layer of foam under the fabric. We angled the seat for proper lounging, so I also want to add an upholstered, angled back.

My prof was impressed with it, I was especially proud. It took me a couple days longer than I would have liked, but I am glad I took the time I did! What do you think?

Before-ish

After

Linked to:






 

Painful Hutch

We have this hutch.

Evolving Color Palette

Before we moved in, we chose a color palette for our condo. My parents have BM Powell Buff HC-35 in their front hall at their house. I have always liked it, so we chose that as our neutral.

What We Moved Into

We were very eager beavers when we purchased our condo in July of 2007. We were moving in together for the first time, and had BIG plans of what we would do to make this our home. We have done a lot, but this thing called the recession has gotten in the way a bit. I just wanted to share some "day we moved in" pictures with you all! Enjoy the 1980's...Terrible light fixtures/fans, odd off-white color on the walls & tile that makes you question why mauve was ever "in." Don't even get me started on mirrors.

Front Door

Oops! x2

I have had a rough week. Well, not really, just 2 projects that have not yet succeeded.
This is fail #1:
I am painting my black bedroom furniture navy. This piece is a leg of a table that is new to our bedroom so started off stained wood. I took it apart, sanded it, primed it, 2 coats of paint on almost every surface. I kept hoping the second coat would darken it up, then I was hoping it would dry darker. Neither happened. It's bright-freaking-blue. So back to the store I went, with a new color in mind, one coat later, I am happy!
These are the legs, new on the left, old on the right.

If At First You Don't Succeed...

Well, it was worth a shot! After we got rid of our TV armoir (I only have a picture of the bottom part and Sophia's butt, sorry!)

Little Table

For our wedding gift, my Grandmother brought me to her favorite auction house to choose some pieces I liked. She stayed for the auction and called me the next day. She had won two tables for us! Woohoo! So, I went to pick up my tables and only one was there, wah wah. The table that was still there had a good shape but was not nearly as cool as the missing table :( So I took the not as nice table home.
A few weeks later, the auction house called to say my pretty table had been returned! Someone had taken it by accident and was nice enough to bring it back. And the best part was it looked 1000x better. They had cleaned it all up. We took it home right away and use it as a front hall table. The poor ugly table, it stayed in my parent's garage for a few months. I brought it to our house to put our toaster on so it was off the counter. It REALLY didn't work with our overall taste. Finally I had enough and decided to paint it. We had a nice-ish weather day that I used to sand and prime it outdoors.
I got a little too excited and started to sand it before taking a 'before' shot. The top is definitely not original to the base. It had a lot of damage on it and only a light coat of stain.

Bedroom Closet pt 2

Almost two months ago, I posted before pictures of our master closet. 

Spring cleaning has begun!

I know it's only March but somehow I feel like it is no longer "New Year's Resolution Cleaning," now it is "Spring Cleaning." Also, it helps me keep that resolution going just a bit longer. Living in a small place like ours, is like living on a boat. Things just need to be shifted and cleaned out constantly. So I began with a few kitchen cabinets and drawers that had not been touched recently.
This is our utensil drawer, not terrible but there was a bunch in there we either don't use or got a better version as a wedding gift.

Bedroom Closet Before

We moved here in August of 2007. I was in heaven! We had 14 feet of closet space in our bedroom. 14 feet. 14 whole feet. It was one rod with two shelves above it. I knew at some point we would want to change it and make it more efficient, but it worked for a while.

Conquering Our Overworked Hall Closet

After our wedding this fall, our already overloaded hall closet just about exploded. We use it for a pantry, linen closet, coat closet, broom closet, and anything else that needs a home. We have remodeled our bedroom closet, but because this one holds so much, I am having a hard time committing to a configuration I will like. So in the mean time, I will make it work for us and our "stuff"

Before

Portmerion Pt 1

For Christmas my wonderful mother gave us 10 sets of our Portmerion Botanical Garden dishes to add to our previously slow growing collection. It was a wonderfully thoughtful gift. Until we got home and reality set in: we have a 7 ft x 7ft kitchen. So my space planning abilities kicked into overdrive. The cabinet I needed to house the dishes currently had our glasses in it. So, I had to move the glasses, but where to? To a bookcase that housed DVD's in the living area of course! I unloaded the bookcase and moved it into the kitchen/dining area and loaded it with glasses. I am thrilled with the result (for today.)