Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Bedroom Buffet

I bought this lovely antique falling-apart buffet at Goodwill for $29.99.  It's been sitting in the dining room screaming HELP! for several months.  Well, since before Easter.  My sister-in-law (God bless her; she is fearless) and I decided to tackle this one this last weekend on my birthday.  This piece ended up kicking my ....


See that warped veneer on the top?  Yea, it took HOURS of sanding.  Hours.  We peeled the veneer off, no problem.  The 50 year old glue didn't come off as easy.  After watching this debacle transpire, my husband (while staring at the lovely finished product I am about to reveal) said "well, I've decided you need a better sander".   Yes, I do.  Please get me a better sander.

We were working on this piece on the front porch, trying to stay out of the heat but still outside so we wouldn't get dust everywhere.  Being that it was my birthday, we found a stopping point and left for my Dad's house (he was cooking dinner for me!).  So, then came the MONSOON.  It rained and rained, and my buffet drawers, while under the porch, got soaked.  The wood expanded and they wouldn't fit in the buffet anymore.  I was sad.

At this point, my spirit was broken.  I had looked at this antique piece in Goodwill and thought, I can fix you.  We can work this out together.  But I had bruises on my knuckles and wet drawers.  I was done.  I was ready to break up.

And then my husband came up with Plan B.  It was a good plan.  I liked it.  I didn't want my bruised knuckles to have been for nothing.  So here we go.  Plan B.  No drawers - shelves!!!!



He helped me cut some wood, build some shelves, and add some trim.  And then he vanished to get on the tractor but that's another story...so I painted and distressed and antiqued and added hardware and then she was done.  I was exhausted.  Was it worth it? You bet.  Nobody else has one of these that cost $30 and was made with so much love and pain.




I don't know what I am going to put on the bottom shelf yet, and I have some fun stuff to hang above it, so it is not fancied up yet.  What do you think?



Tuesday, September 4, 2012

File Cabinet Makeover

I am starting to think about how to set up my office, the one the kids are sleeping in until we get their floor laid upstairs :).  A file cabinet is one of those functional yet ugly items that every office needs.  We found an old metal file cabinet in one of the mini storage lockers my husband bought (YUUUP, HE THINKS HE IS ON STORAGE WARS.)  While it was nasty and pretty sub par for MY idea of good office decor, appearances can easily be changed.  It did take some convincing that I could make this thing usable and we should keep it instead of selling it.  But I am convincing.

I can't find my before picture of the file cabinet, but you know what it looked like.We spray painted the dingy silver-looking handles with oil-rubbed bronze to kick this project off.  And the we started tearing pages out of a book and modge-podging them on!

 I know you are wondering what book was used...my file cabinet is covered in The Hunger Games.  Yea, we are cool like that.

After we got the whole thing covered in words, I painted the part where you put a label with chalkboard paint.

 This project was completed for a cost of zero dollars (the BEST kind of projects!).  I used all stuff I had.  And now it's not quite so ugly...yay!