Kids Chair Refinish Project

A couple facts: I love elephants, and I love projects.  My neighbors across the street were in the process of moving a couple months ago, and I spotted a little chair with an elephant on it in their driveway with their stuff they were having picked up for charity donation.  I sent her a quick text and asked if I could have it, and then sent my kids over to pick it up.  

It was an adorable little metal chair, with peeling white paint, some rust, and a faded seat.  I knew I could bring it back to life and that it would be perfect for my daughter to lounge in on the deck.  

I started working on it by taking the seat off (there were 12 screws holding that tiny seat on!)  Next, I sanded the areas that were rusted, and then primed it with a spray primer for metal.  The trim on our house is a light tan color and I wanted something that would coordinate with that.  The fabric I picked (Outdoor canvas fabric from JoAnn Fabrics. Normally $19.99/yard, but it was on 50% off that week) was a mix of turquoise, tan, and white, so I went with an Almond color for the metal part of the chair.  I sprayed two coats and that was that.  

I decided to use the existing seat for the chair and just cover it with new fabric.  I laid the seat on the fabric and just eyeballed how much to cut out.  Getting it back on the chair was tricky, and would have been easier if I had a couple extra hands to hold the fabric tight, while I screwed the screws back in.  No such luck on the extra hands, but I made it work.

  

I think it turned out great, and my daughter is thrilled to have her own little chair to sit in!

From Dresser To Entertainment Center

We've lived in our house for over 10 years, and have had the same cheap entertainment center since moving in.  For a long time, I've been keeping my eye out for the perfect old dresser to refinish and turn into the entertainment center in our living room.  I frequent our local ReStore and love to go on "Spin the Wheel Wednesday" when you get to spin the wheel and get a discount between 5%-40% off your purchase.  A couple months ago, on a Wednesday, I ran in and found the store almost empty...standing all alone, was this gem.

It had a $40 price tag, was solid wood, had a variety of drawer sizes, three drawers behind the doors, and I knew immediately that it was coming home with me.  I texted my husband a picture to get his opinion, and when he hadn't responded within 60 seconds, I made the executive decision to buy it.  My daughter spun the wheel, landed on 20% off, and after tax paid $36 for what I knew was going to be a great addition to my living room.

There were lots of things little things I wanted to change on the dresser.  First, I got rid of the top two drawers (I painted the inside), removed the piece of wood that they slide on (I have no idea what the technical term for that piece is), and pulled out the drawer stoppers at the very back on the inside.  Next, I took the hinges off the doors and all the hardware off the drawers.  That led to a whole other list of tasks that I hadn't anticipated, and I'll talk more on that later.  I don't usually sand furniture I work on, because it isn't necessary with the chalk paint I use, but there were some areas that needed it.  I have a Skil Octo sander that my husband bought me for Christmas, and it is pretty fantastic. I personally don't like my furniture to have the weathered/distressed look, so I like to patch dents and scratches.  There were plenty of those on this dresser to take care of.  I use the Elmer's Wood Filler and love it. 

You know when you have grand plans, and you picture everything in your head, and things work out exactly as you visioned them?  No?  Oh, yeah, me either.  I had originally planned on doing several things on this project, that I learned through trial and error, weren't going to work out like I thought they would.  I had a vision of a purple dresser, with metallic silver doors, that looked absolutely fabulous.  I knew the second that I started painting the doors that I was going to hate it, but thought maybe if I finished painting them, I'd actually love it.  Nope, I hated them even more than I thought I would.  For some reason, the only thing I could think of when I looked at them next to the purple paint I chose for the dresser, was Medieval Times restaurant/show thing.  I've never been there, but I am pretty sure that what I had created was what their decor looks like.  Anyway, the silver doors were short lived.  

Of all the paint I've tried with my chalk paint recipe (used here, here, here, and here), my favorite is the Glidden brand from Wal-Mart.  I get it in an eggshell finish, and the most important part is to get the kind without primer added to it.  The color I used was Deep Amethyst and then I put a coat of satin polyurethane after it had dried for extra protection.  It looks darker in person than in the picture below.  

I painted the inside and the sides of the drawers, which probably wasn't completely necessary.  I wasn't going to originally, but then I kept picturing my kids leaving the drawers open and seeing the ugly brown wood, and my obsessive compulsive tendencies got the best of me.  It was a total drag, and took a lot of extra time.  My husband dared to ask at one point, why I was painting the insides of the drawers, and in my head I just pictured myself punching him right in the face.  I didn't, and I tried to explain myself without freaking out. True love I tell you.  My five year old daughter and her friends also decided to stack all the drawers on top of the dresser in the middle of my project, which led to me having to sand and repaint the top.  I totally could have done without that as well.  

Every time I do a project, I hit some point where I get really frustrated about how things are going.  This project had several of those times, but I powered through.  One of the frustrations came from the original hardware that I removed. I have no idea how old the dresser is, but "antique" parts is what one expert I consulted told me I had on my hands.  I had hoped to just purchase new knobs, drawer pulls, and hinges for the doors, spend five minutes putting them on, and call it good.  No.Such.Luck.  Two of the drawers had handles, and two had knobs.  When I removed the knobs, for some reason they had an extra hole drilled for a little plug on the knob to go into.  I patched that, sanded them, and moved on to the other drawers.  I measured the distance between the holes for the drawer pulls, only to find that they were 4.5" apart, and there aren't pulls made in that width anymore.  Fine, fine, patch both those holes, sand, and then measure and drill a new hole for a different type of knob.  The hinges weren't something that I could replace.  They don't make anything even remotely close to the originals, and the only choice I had was to refinish them.  I ended up spray painting them black, and also hand painting the screws after I put the doors back on.  I found knobs that I loved at Hobby Lobby, then had to go buy different screws for them because the ones they came with weren't long enough.   While I was looking for the screws, a man came up behind me and said "You know, you can just find a good looking guy to do that for you."  I censored myself, responded with something much less horrible than what I was thinking, found the screws I wanted, and left the store.  I'm far from helpless, and am still shaking my head over what an idiot that guy was.  

I am incredibly happy with the final result.  I think one thing I love so much about doing projects, is seeing it all come together and appreciating the heck out of my hard work.  I love having a piece of furniture that no one else has, and that is 100% my vision and style.  I love bright colors, and little details, and I'm able to incorporate whatever I want into my projects.  Makes all the frustration worth it in the end.

 I got the owls at TJ Maxx and the bird cage at Hobby Lobby.  I absolutely love them!

Folding Chair Refinish - Easy DIY

I recently refinished a desk to make a Lego table (you can see it here) for my son's room and he needed a chair to go with it.  I didn't want to buy one, so I went down to our basement and found an old folding chair that was not looking very lovely.  It had paint on the seat, but otherwise was in great shape.  The boy wanted some cushion on his chair, so this would be perfect.

I popped the seat cushion off and went right to the spray paint.  I used the same color red that I used on an old school desk that is in my son's room, and I thought I'd have enough to finish this chair.  I ended up running out and had to go get another bottle, so I the first thing I had to pay for was a $3.77 can of paint at Wal-Mart.  I had to put several coats of paint on, which seems to happen any time I use red on anything.  It takes a lot of it to get full coverage.  

After a couple coats...I didn't worry about the seat because it was getting covered with the cushion.

I bought a yard of navy blue fabric at Hobby Lobby, which was more than I needed for this project, but it was $3.99/yard and I also had a 40% off coupon.  I put the fabric over the old cushion cover because I didn't want to damage the foam on the cushion if the old cover had adhesive on it.  This part took about 3 minutes to complete.  I ironed the fabric, laid the cushion on it, and cut around it with about 1.5" of allowance for folding it under.  I didn't worry about cutting perfectly because the bottom wasn't going to show, and clearly they didn't care when they put the original cover on either.  Next I sprayed the cushion with spray adhesive (which I had on hand already), put it on the fabric, and folded it around.  I sprayed the edges on the back side and also put a few staples (pretty sure I could have skipped that step though) around the edges. 

Once the paint was dry, I just popped the cushion back on and I was done.  I can now consider my Lego desk project complete! 

Before/After

 Desk/Chair 

Boring Desk Refinish - Lego Desk Fun!

My son loves Legos.  He has an insane collection of sets, but the problem is that once he builds them, he doesn't have a good way to store them, so they just get dumped in buckets and never rebuilt.  It drives me crazy because the sets are pricey, and I hate that he only builds them one time.  I've been scouring the good old internet for ideas for Lego tables, but he is almost 10, and everything I find seems geared toward much younger kids.  We rearranged his room last week, and I told him we would go find a desk to refinish for his new Lego table.  

We headed out to my beloved local Re-Store last Wednesday with our fingers crossed.  We wandered around, not falling in love with anything.  There were a few pieces that were just okay, but nothing we really loved.  Eventually we stopped and looked at a roll top desk (which was not what we had in mind), and the more we stood there looking at it, the more potential we saw in it.  It was $60, which was more than we had wanted to spend, but we were there on "Spin the Wheel Wednesday", so we knew we could spin and get anywhere from a 5% to a 40% discount.  We put a hold on it, and then went back later in the day with my husband.  At the checkout, my son spun the wheel and was grinning from ear to ear when it landed on 40% off.  $38 including tax and we were on our way!

The desk only took up space in our garage for a few days and then I had to get to work on it.  Below freezing weather was headed our way, and my husband wanted his parking space back. :)

I started by washing the desk with a damp cloth and then repairing a couple small holes.  I removed all the hardware (my son didn't like any of it because, and I quote, "it looks old fashioned, and I want it to be modern") so I wasn't going to reuse it.

Next I made chalk paint (I mix 2 tbsp unsanded grout in 3 tbsp of water, and then stir it into 1 cup of paint...other projects I've done with chalk paint here, here, and here).  I had the quart of paint on hand from a free offer that Glidden had awhile back.  I used it to refinish an old school desk that is aleady in my son's room, and he wanted the big desk to match it.  I painted two coats, let it dry for a day, and then brushed on a coat of polyurethane (which I had on hand already as well)

 for extra protection.  

Paint and Polyurethane I used...

With two coats of paint...

After Polyurethane

I ordered four 10"x10" Lego base plates from Amazon (they were on sale for $3.94 each) and attached them to the desk using Simply Tacky.  I originally planned to glue them, but liked the idea of using the Simply Tacky product because I wanted to be able to easily remove the plates someday.  I knew using craft glue would make that difficult and worried about potential damage to the wood.  I just peeled little bits off, pressed them to the back of the plates, and stuck them to the desk.  It was easy to re-position them and they are stuck on there well enough that won't lift off when he plays.

The next task was to find hardware for the drawers.  It took a trip to four different stores to find what I was looking for... modern, yet appropriate for a boy's room.  I found that things were either very ornate, or silver, or I couldn't get handles and knobs that matched.  Finally found triumph at Home Depot and it only cost me $11.51 for five knobs and four handles.  

As soon as I had the knobs on, my son went right to filling the drawers and setting up his minifigures, so I didn't get a picture before everything was added.  Here is the final, and much loved product.  This was definitely one of my favorite projects that I've done so far.

Headboard DIY

We upgraded to a king size bed a few months ago, but after endless searching, I couldn't find a bed that I liked at all.  After many failed searches, we ended up just buying the mattress/box springs, and a bed frame and I decided that we would just build a headboard that I liked.

I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do, but wasn't exactly sure how to make it work, so I did some research and then decided to wing it.

I knew I didn't want wood with knots, or any kind of imperfections, so I went with these primed boards from Lowes.  I got a variety of widths for the main part, and for the side trim pieces.  A king size bed is 76" wide, and the typical king headboard is 78", so I went with that for the total width.  We measured everything and my husband cut them for me.

Next, I painted each board using the same color paint I used in my Dresser Refinish and Church Pew Refinish posts.  I love the Olympic brand paint from Lowes, and use it for pretty much anything I paint.

I wanted one of the boards to be different, and I decided I wanted to cover it with the same fabric I used for the Church Pew.  I got it from fabric.com and love it.  I laid the fabric wrong side up, sprayed the board with spray adhesive, and then carefully pressed the board on to the fabric.  I let it sit for a minute, then flipped it over, sprayed the other side, and folded the fabric the rest of the way around.  The spray adhesive I got allows you time to re position if you need to, which was much appreciated.

When I started researching how to build furniture several months ago, it became very apparent to me that I needed to buy a Kreg Jig.  I convinced my husband we needed it for this project, and he was kind enough to purchase it for me, even though he had never seen one before.  He now thinks it is one of the greatest tools ever, so I feel super smart for recommending it. :)  It allows you to drill at these fun little angles so that it is easy to attach boards without having the screws showing.  We drilled holes into the boards that would be the main part of the headboard and then attached them to the side pieces.

We struggled a lot deciding how to hang the headboard on the wall.  I didn't want screws showing, and the studs in our wall didn't line up with where we would ideally attach the headboard.  In the end, we used two  1"x2"x8' boards (that we cut to 75" so that you wouldn't see them behind the headboard).  We attached them to the studs in the wall, and then screwed the side pieces of the headboard to them.  We used the Kreg Jig again on the trim pieces so that we could screw them in from the top on bottom to attach them to the front of the headboard, allowing for no screws to be seen from the front.

Here are the boards, and the headboard before the final trim was added.

I love how it turned out!  We sat in our room last night and looked around at the built in shelves (my husband built them a few years ago for me...pictures coming soon), the headboard, and the church pew and dresser I refinished, and realized that we have essentially made everything in there.  Everything is exactly how I wanted it to be, and none of it could have been purchased because it is all my design.  That makes me super happy!

Finished product...

Dresser Refinish - From Ugly to Fab

Our bed used to have drawers under it, so we really didn't need a dresser in our room.  We recently got a new bed, so I had to quickly find a dresser to make up for the lost drawer space.  Per the norm, I had something specific in my head, and looked everywhere trying to find the perfect thing.  Of course, the perfect thing was no where to be found, so started looking for something old to make into something new.  

We continually visited all of the thrift stores in the the area for several weeks until I found this gem...

I started by removing all the drawers, taking the hardware off, and wiping everything down with a damp cloth.  I had paint leftover from a built in shelf project my husband did in our room, so I used that to make chalk paint (same method I used in this post for another project).  This wood wasn't easily covered, so I ended up putting three coats of paint on, when with most projects I only need to do two.  In between paint coats, I sprayed the hardware with this spray paint...

It doesn't even seem like the same dresser to me anymore.  It amazes me what a little paint can do for a piece of furniture.  

Before/After

I love how it looks against the purple wall!

Crib to Bench Project

When Pinterest first came out, I happened upon a picture of a crib turned into a bench.  I thought it was a great idea, but the link that it went to was just a picture, no tutorial or anything.  My son's crib had been taking up space in our basement for six years or so and for whatever reason, I had never gotten rid of it.  We didn't use it for our daughter when she was born, and it had since been added to the list of drop side cribs that were recalled a few years ago.  I have no idea why it was still around, and I decided to do something with it.

In looking at the picture I found on Pinterest, I realized that the crib we had wasn't going to work the way they had transformed theirs.  The headboard and footboard on our crib were different (one had rails and one was a flat panel), and the side rails were thin and lightweight.  With the crib in the picture, they had been able to just cut one side in half and attach it to the back, and that wasn't an option with our crib.  I've learned that with most things I plan, they are never as easy as I think they'll be, and this was not an exception to that rule.

I needed a back for the bench, and the only thing I could come up with, was to flip the two side rails on their sides and attach them together.  We (by we, I mean my husband operated the saw while I watched) then cut the head board in half to create the arm rests and attached them to the back piece we had made.  Then we cut the footboard in half, removed the flat panel, and the decorative top piece was turned upside down and made into what would hold the boards for the seat of the bench.  I used two 8" wide boards and a 4" wide board to make the seat.  Here is what I had at that point...

I filled the screw holes with wood putty and sanded the whole bench before using a spray primer and then spray painting the bench.  This summer I power washed and repainted it (using chalk paint... see Sierra's tutorial here Sew Much More Than Rubies) because the paint hadn't held up the way I wanted it to.  I wish I had known about chalk paint when I made the bench, because I like it so much more.  The paint color I chose was Valspar "Aqua Ocean".

Outdoor fabric isn't cheap, so I waited till it was half off at JoAnn's and used a 20% off coupon on top of that.  I had a piece of 2" high density foam cut for the cushion, as well as a piece of clear vinyl cut in the same size as the fabric.  I made my bench seat using this tutorial from Honey We're Home, but added the layer of vinyl before the fabric since I am using the bench on my front porch.

I sewed some quick matching pillow covers and that was that.  I love this bench so much and had so much fun making it!  The crib originally belonged to my sister in law, who told me she didn't need it back and that I could do whatever I wanted with it.  After my project was done she said she'd like the crib back because she likes it a lot more now.  I think I'll go ahead and keep it.

Church Pew Refinishing Project

Valentine's Day is a holiday where the average husband gets his wife gifts like flowers, chocolate, and cheesy stuffed animals right?  I love that we are anything but average, and that last Valentine's Day my husband gave me an old, dusty, ugly, in not so super shape, church pew for my gift.  We love to stop in Re-Store, or other thrift shops from time to time to see if there are any treasures waiting there for us.  We had happened upon this pew and I stopped to look at it a few times while we were there.  My husband took note, and went back to get it after work the next day.   Best.Gift.Ever.  Isn't it lovely? 

I had plans for a bedroom remodel and eventually wanted to put the refinished pew under the window in my room.  The pew lived in our garage for six months until we finally started working on our room.  Fast forward six months, a new bed and bedding, trim painted, and I was finally ready to get to work on the pew. It was quite possibly, my least favorite project I've ever done, and I considered setting it on fire no fewer than three times during the project.  

I started by taking everything apart.  There was a lot of damage to the wood that needed to be repaired, so I fixed all of the spots using wood putty and then sanded them smooth.  I had to pry the fabric off and remove the overabundance of staples (and by I, I mean my fabulous husband painstakingly pulled staples out of the wood for hours) off of each piece.  Here is what I was working with at that point...

After everything was repaired, I was ready to paint.  I fell in love with Chalk Paint after my friend Sierra posted a tutorial on her blog Sew Much More Than Rubies.  I follow her same steps, but for me it works easier to dissolve the grout in a tablespoon or two of water and then stir it into the paint.  The one thing I don't recommend is using the paint that has the primer already in it.  I forgot to tell the guy at Lowe's not to use that kind recently, and the paint gets really, really thick when you mix the grout in.  It still worked, it just wasn't as easy to work with.  I forgot to take any pictures during the painting process, but it wasn't very exciting.

The part that I didn't enjoy was putting my new fabric on.  The fabric I bought wasn't as heavy duty as the previous fabric, and because of the pattern, it was really tricky to get on straight.  The pew cushion is older and not shaped perfectly, which sent my obsessive compulsive personality into near melt down mode several times.  We ended up putting the pew back together, taking it apart, flipping the cushion another way, and then putting it back together at least another time or two.  By the time we had gotten that done, the top piece of wood split while it was being nailed back on, so I had to repair that, and then touch up all the paint we had messed up throughout the process. (Did you notice the switch from "I" to "We" on the parts that didn't go as planned?  My husband says I never admit to being wrong, so I don't want to start now by saying I had any part in the areas that went poorly. Haha!)  

It isn't as perfect as my OCD would like it to be, but I am coming to grips with the imperfections.  I made a few pillow covers for some old square pillows, and I'm calling it done.  

Here are the before/after pictures...