Oak Be Gone

When Luke and I moved to our current rental, we suddenly had more space than we had furniture for (great problem!).  We had also officially graduated to grown ups: we had room for not one, but TWO nightstands in our bedroom!  Yes, this is the sign that you are grown up in case you didn't know.

So since we were all "grown up" but still had income that was pretty much loan money for educational purposes, I scoured Craigslist and found these beauts.  

Yes they were a pair.  

Yes they were the perfect size.

Yes they were in our very reasonable price range.

No they were not where we lived BUT they were where my parents lived!  I remember them calling from the person's house and my Dad bargaining with the seller.  He was proud he had brought the price down and I was ecstatic it was all working out!  My Mom - well I think she was a little freaked she was in some stranger's house, but hey, she was there for moral support for my Dad!

So I got to work priming, painting, and attaching new handles to get rid of the oak color and dated handles that didn't really jive with our decor.

Ready for the new nightstands?

The handles were purchased through ebay for less than $2/piece and have held up well over the past couple of years! (If you search "brushed nickel cup drawer pull" you can find similar options.) The paint is Painter's Touch (Rustoleum) in Heirloom White and I think Kona Brown (?) with a poly finish on top to protect it.  Had I redone the nightstands now, I would use the ORB - Oil Rubbed Bronze - paint instead of the Kona color (was not available when I originally did this).

We use the nightstands daily and the surface is just now starting to get a little scratched, but they easily wipe down for dusting and have been quite practical for storing books for night reading, sheets for the bed, and other odds and ends.  

 Before and After:

Total for the actual nightstands and refinishing was under $70 (maybe even lower) for the pair.  Not too shabby! 

I've gone off my rocker

I think the title of this post is true: I have gone off my rocker!  Thanks to a lovely hip injury and a busy holiday/interview season, posts have been quite sporadic, but I am hoping to do a better job in the near future!

Here's a glimpse into a Craigslist find that I transformed a while back.  Meet the rocker:

Not exactly the kind of "rocker" you might have been imaging.  Not quite as "punk" as many of the rockers I envision, but she definitely has her own style.  A style I'm not exactly sure what to call and will refrain from so as not to offend anyone who may have a similar rocker in their life.

Yes the fabric did look just as bad in person, but for the cost of the chair ::cough cough free!:: I thought I could make this rocking chair look new again!

So I got to work taking off the layerS of fabric.  Yes layers is plural.

The second layer of fabric made the first one not look so bad! Unfortunately, each layer was held in place by hundreds of staples, so my pliers and I became good friends, until I took the second layer of brown fabric off and found the red fabric seen above, which was attached with nails.  Enter hammer.  And too much time removing staples, but in the end it was worth it!

So after all of the fabric was removed, I primed and spray painted the rocking chair with Rustoleum spray paint.  I thought about trying to salvage the stain, but there were too many details that I didn't want to have to sand to get to the bare wood. 

I then used a spray poly to seal the chair and act as an added layer of protection.  I chose a semi-gloss to give it a little shine!

Next step was the face lift of fabric!  I used a 40% coupon at Hobby Lobby to purchase a new seat cushion and some black and white coordinating fabric.  At home, I placed the seat cushion over the springs, then used my handy staple gun to secure two layers of batting (already had at home) around the cushion to soften out the corners.  I then finished off the chair with the black and white fabric, also securing it to the chair with a staple gun.  

Ready for the transformation?

Before:

After:

And a photo-bombing dog after:

The intent was to "flip" the rocking chair, but Luke has been using the chair in "his room" as a place to put his bag, and I think it adds a little bit of coziness to the space!  That doesn't mean it has found it's permanent home, but for now, I think it can stay until I get the urge to transform another piece of furniture, which happens about every 3-6 months, so I guess I'm due!  But I think I'll be waiting  until the month of December is done. Happy Holidays!

That doesn't mean it has found it's permanent home, but for now, I think it can stay until I get the urge to transform another piece of furniture, which happens about every 3-6 months, so I guess I'm due!  But I think I'll be waiting until the month of December is done. Happy Holidays!

Buildables: Factory Cart Inspiration

After finding Ana White's website, I had the urge to keep building furniture.  This in theory wasn't such a bad situation, but our house didn't need any more furniture.  When I told my sister of my predicament, she was happy to provide a wish list for her new condo.  She fell in love with Restoration Hardware's Furniture Factory Cart, but the price tag was a little more than she wanted to pay for a coffee table.  

Buildables: Ana-Inspiration - Simple, Cheap, and Easy Console Table

If you haven't heard of Ana White, I think it is a blog you should add to your repertoire. It's an AMAZING website full of easy to follow plans created by Ana herself while living in rural Alaska.  When I first discovered her website, I spent HOURS on end searching through plans and brag posts trying to decide what I wanted my first project to be. We had just moved in to our current place, money was tight, but I still wanted to turn our house into a home (and not just another rental).   

I decided to start with the Simple, Cheap, And Easy Console Table (the name even summed up my hopes for my first project - sold).  I borrowed my Dad's miter saw (the least scary of all saws in my opinion) and headed to "Big Blue" as Ana refers to it to pick out my lumber, with the printed plan in my hand.  I adjusted the dimensions to fit my space and had most of the wood pre-cut at the store (offered at nearly all Big Blues), but realized later I wanted to add on another shelf, and wanted to try my Dad's saw at home for the few remaining cuts.  Using a miter saw is actually quite easy, but louder than I expected and very messy!  Sawdust everywhere.  It's almost worse than glitter.   

DIY: Restructure Refinish Repurpose

Many of you reading this post know that I have refinished a dresser into a media center, but since this is my inaugural post, I thought I should blog about my inaugural project that really got my feet wet in DIY projects.  I found a listing on Craiglist for a FREE dresser as long as we went and picked it up,  It had been published maybe ten minutes, and by the time I heard back from the owner, he said he had already been contacts my multiple individuals interested in the dresser.  As long as I could pick it up in the next few hours - it was mine!    Enter me bribing Luke to go with me to get the dresser - it may or may not have involved ice cream!

We stored the dresser in the garage at our first place (~600 square feet total!) until we moved into our current location where we could actually put the dresser to use!  Below is the unaltered first picture I took of said dresser.  It was missing a few handles, had a few drawers that fit too wonky to actually work, and had a spot on top where the last owner had started to "refinish" it and gave up.