Two more mini projects: Dresser

We found this dresser on the Cache Valley Classifieds facebook page and bought it for $10
When the wife got there it was in worse condition than we expected.  It wasn't real wood and it looked like it had been sitting outside and so there was visible water damage.

Labels

The sanding shows how bubbly the top had become.  All it needed was some spraypaint and finish.

You can still see the bubbles, even after a while of sanding.  But it turned out cute.

Play Pantry:

Two blog posts in one day! After quitting both jobs now have some time to finish some projects.

This pantry was an awesome find. We talked it down to $10 and it came with a ton of cool toys; plates, utensils, toy food, tupperware, and juice pitchers. We found out that father of the lady who sold it made it for her when she was a girl, and she passed it down to her daughter. The thing is sturdy like a rock and they used copious amounts of polyurethane so it is virtually indestructible.  The only problem is that it looks terrible.

I painted it white and covered it with a thick layer of polyurethane. One thing we learned: CLEAR POLYURETHANE IS NOT CLEAR!  If you get too think of a layer it is yellow. Which means my white pantry turned out eggshell, and the color is uneven.  We will see how much it bugs me.

We used the rest of the dollar store contact paper for wall paper, and it turned out looking better than I thought.

Sorry the pictures are blurry.  The daughter got a hold of the camera, and junked up the lens.

How (not) to refinish a dresser

This was probably the most time consuming project ever. If at all possible do not attempt to strip and re-stain old beat-up furniture.  But if you must, here is what were did and learned.

Being a blogging n00b I forgot/lost the before pictures but here is one to help you get an idea of what we were working with.

We found this treasure at a garage sale and talked them down to 15 dollars, right before a bunch of Pinterest college kids swooped in to try and take it. If anything, Pinterest has turned this town into a bunch of crazy people (myself included).

What originally attracted us were these awesome glass or maybe ceramic knobs.

The previous owners had covered this in a thick layer of awful latex canary yellow paint.  You know that crappy paint job that makes it look slightly weathered? The dresser was very dinged up and there were deep grooves where it had, I assume, been dragged through Vietnam in the 50's then been assaulted by pygmies wielding machetes. I have never stripped furniture before and naively thought "how hard could it be?" and more appropriately "if I screw up it's a junky piece of furniture and I wont feel too bad."

Stripping:
Striping furniture is one of the worst things ever. Stripper comes in somewhat expensive cans and the best stuff we found has a jelly consistency and they all smell terrible. There are guides out there for which works best but in my experience they are all awful and it will be a terrible experience no matter what.

The first challenge is timing.  You want to put on a VERY thick layer of primer because it evaporates very quickly.  The payoff is you want it in a very ventilated place so you don't die, but the more open air the faster it dries. If you wait too long it will get gummy, and the dissolved paint will actually soak deeper into the wood creating more work. Some have recommended covering it with tinfoil for 50 min, but I had little luck with this and it dried out much faster.


What worked best for me was globing on a thick layer then letting it sit for about 10 min.  The paint will bubble up as it separates from the wood. Then using a sharp scrapper I was able to get giant sheets off at a time. The problem was I had to go back and pick out paint from all off the dings and cracks in the wood, and I had to go back over each area with medium and fine steel wool. It took days to finally get it all stripped.

Staining:
We wanted a darker stain, and I have had no experience with stain either.  The most important thing we learned here is to treat all of the wood the same.  I didn't sand all the parts evenly, and so they all stained at different rates and getting it all to match was terrible. We wanted a warm dark brown almost black color, and the parts that still had some of the old stain turned out great, but I had to sand and redo them :( The finished project ended up looking great though.

After everything it actually turned out alright!

We finished the drawers with some contact paper we got from the dollar store.

The final project looks awesome, even though it was a ton more work than anticipated, and certainly more expensive than I had hoped.

Cost:

Dresser - $15

Stripper - free (but total about $20)

Steel wool - free

Rubber gloves - free

Stain - $8

Contact Paper - 5 x $1

DIY Jewelry Box Makeover

 We picked up this jewelry box at DI for $3.  The outside was scratched and the felt inside was warped and had gotten attacked by marker, so we wanted to remake it.

First we ripped out the existing felt.  You want to keep the old cardboard bases to use as a pattern for the new.

We had some really cute soft fabric we intended to use for a baby blanket and we decided to use some for this.  I used Elmer's Glue for the felt.  I didn't want the glue to be any stronger or to leak through the fabric. And then dried them in a phone book to keep them from warping.

Then spray painted it black, and glued in the new felt.  I tried rubber cement but it didn't work that well. Instead, I used some liquid nails I found laying around and it worked great.  I spray painted the metal fixtures grey then silver. And aged the knobs with some leftover paint from a faux pewter kit I had.

It turned out great.  Next project, finishing a girl's dresser, and then a picnic table?

Finishing Touches

So here are the final touches for the Kitchen Play set, and I have to say, the fridge door turned out awesome!

First I added a cheap frame we found for a window.  I still need to find a nice picture.

I got a dish-rack that would fit in the bottom cabinet for all the small kitchen stuff we have found at D.I. so far, and kept the other cabinet for random toys.

Now to the best part.  The fridge door is awesome.  Originally I wanted to give magnetic paint a try and do a faux metal finish like I did with the oven door, but that stuff is WAY to pricey.  It's about $20 for a small can, and reviews say that it just doesn't work that well. We have some really strong magnets I got from my parents last Christmas that are awesome, but we also wanted to be able to use Elena's magnetic letters which are quite weak, so we decided to go metal.

I used some scrap wood we found in the parent's garage for a base, then covered it with a sheet of metal we found at Home Depot in the air duct section for $7.  I glued the metal to the wood with a bunch of wood-glue and a little gorilla-glue to fill in the gaps.  I painted the back white and glued a wire tray I found at DI for .50 with liquid-nails.  But the best part is the finish on the metal.  I used some iron wool and a scrubbing sponge to give it a brushed steel polish and it looks awesome.  Finished with the second Ikea handle and some cabinet magnets to hold it closed for $1.

 The fridge shelf was some plexiglass I bummed of the parents and covered with a layer of polyacrilic finish.
 All in all super happy about how it has all turned out.

Totals from previous post: $90

Metal: $7
Fridge tray: .50
Magnets: $1 x 2
Hinges: $3
Frame: free

Wood: free

Paint: free

Plexiglass: free

Handle: already bought

New Total:  103$

Again, a bit more than I expected, but it has been a ton of fun and it looks better than any of the other entertainment center play kitchens I have seen.

Together with the play table and chairs we have an awesome play kitchen!

Kitchen Tables and Chairs

New Project!!

Last weekend the family went garage sale shopping and it was a great success.  In addition to some large megablocks and some adorable kid's shoes for the daughter, we found the best garage sale deal EVER!

A kid table and chairs for $2!!!!

Seriously, when we asked how much and she told us 2 dollars I was shocked. Most people around here charge WAY too much for garage sale items, and the DI is partially to blame.  She was also selling a crib for $5 and an ottoman.  We didn't ask how much, and regret not grabbing them too.


Regretfully I didn't take any before pictures, and that is sad.  They were ridiculously girly.  White and hot-pink  with flowers and butterflies.  So to match the Kitchen Playset we decided to make them gender neutral and black.

Table and Chairs $2
Spray Paint $4
Polyurethane Finish - kind of expensive but worth it, and I was borrowing some we already had on hand.

They turned out awesome.

I sanded the old paint a little so the new layer would stick.  I actually pressed a little too hard with the electric sander and left some scratch marks.  I should have gone with a smaller grade sandpaper.
After sanding I coated it in 3 layers of black spray paint.

I wanted to finish it with something hard to prevent scratching/chipping so I used some polyurethane finish my brother uses for skateboards.  The can says to avoid over brushing but I wanted to give it a faux wood look.  So I brushed the same direction a few times till it started to look like wood grains.  You can kind of see it here on the table and chairs.

After I let a layer dry I sanded down the texture with some fine 220 sandpaper.  I didn't want it to be too rough because I didn't want it to mess up drawing. The sanding turns the finish milky, so you are going to have to finish with a final coat, but I had problems with blemishes, texture, and bubbles messing up the top coat, so I tried rubbing on the final coat with a sock.  It worked awesome.  I could sand to the desired level then finish with a super thin final coat that actually polished it and make it look awesome.

This looks just like our actual kitchen table and should be awesome to have for years.  Another weekend well spent!

Entertainment Center to Play Kitchen

So here is run down on my kitchen Christmas project.

Total it probably cost 80$  Quite a bit more than I anticipated.  It also took longer, but that was mainly because I fail at painting.


Entertainment Center: 20$ DI

Plexiglas: 13$

Water Faucet: 11$

Oven Knobs:  14$

Sink Bowl:  1$

Oven Rack: 1$ DI

Back Board:  14$

Oven Handle: 12$  Ikea

Paint: mostly free

         Spray Paint 4 cans 4$

CDs: free
Spice Rack: free
Extra Wood: free

Entertainment Center:
This one was perfect.  It is the IKEA style, with the pegs and round clamps you screw to get the pieces to lock together.  This made it super easy to take apart, paint, and alter.  I moved the center divider over a few feet to give plenty of space for the stove and sink.  For the oven, I took the door off, flipped it around, moved the hinges to the bottom, and used the backside which was a simpler design. It looked more like an oven to me.

Materials:

I wanted to start and get this finished quickly, so I didn't have much time to scavenge the materials, and that made it a bit more expensive.  I wish we would have found a free metal bowl.  I think it might have looked nicer.  Oven knobs, handles, and a faucet also would have been easy to find for cheap/free if I had more time.

Paint
I used a ton of paint because I suck.  I kept getting drips and not taping very well because I was in a hurry.  Not to mention the white I was using was old and had flakes of rust.  In addition, spray paint in winter is a pain, and not all spray paint is created equal.  The satin or flat finish paint did a much better job sticking to the finish and had better coverage, and the cheap gloss paint I bought had major problems with dripping.  I tried white spray paint, but that was miserable.  I would recommend regular latex paint for anything light colored, and I actually found an old can of primer which helped as well.  In retrospect I would have payed a few bucks for a paint roller, because the sponge brushes I used were super cheap and left a bunch of streaks.  But they worked nicely for the texture on the walls and ceiling.

Oven and Stove:
The Cooling rack I bought for the oven was slightly too wide.  I had to cut a cm off with a Dremel tool.
The stove top was a sheet of plexiglass and black spray painted cds. I painted the underside with silver and gray to give it some color, without the paint scratching/chipping.  I am also considering painting the cds and the counter top with polyurethane to give it a gloss finish and protect it from scratches.  The oven knobs were a bit annoying.  I wanted them to be able to turn, so I drilled a hole in the adapters and hammered in a nut to hold the bolts securely and plan on gluing them so the knobs don't spin off.



Still need to finish:

• Picture frame for window
• Curtains (already have the material and the wooden dowel)
• Fridge/Freezer door (want to make these magnetic, and the magnetic paint is expensive, plan on using scrap metal glued on top of some cheap wood).
• Handles for fridge door
• Magnets for all doors
• Light for kitchen and fridge
• Chalkboard on the side (want to try out that chalkboard paint)
• Coat rack/shelf for the side