Sunday, April 26, 2015

Vintage Hexagon Table Gets New Life

Quick post on what do with those old so lovely vintage, weirdly shaped, side tables from 
the 70's. Paint them to start with. And why not give them double duty as a pet bed?? 
Mine started out something like this (I forgot to take a before pic). 
                                                                     With a little paint,
 And a fresh new pet bed,

Viola'
 It's painted black all around the back. I would have like to do some black on the door, but way more work than I wanted to spend on this guy. 
 Damian is testing it out....
Mama is just a matching accessory for the photo! 

Either way, it's a cool little addition to the family room or as a night stand for the bedroom. 


Saturday, April 25, 2015

How to properly measure for a new desk top.

Just a little quip I'm writing about today on the bonehead mistake I made.  Perhaps someone else can learn from my errors! So. Drexel Campaign Desk. Suh-weet! 
Friend found it in Vegas and hauled it back for me. Thought it was a good deal until I 
got a close look at it. 
You're probably thinking what's the big deal?? A little veneer action. So what.  Um, no. I forgot to snap pics before hub and I got all the glue and clamps on. 
But you can probably get the gist of just how tore up this baby was. 
 It was lopsided because it was out of the grooves. Now the drawers will close well. 
 Ok. This post isn't about the desk so much as what I did wrong while measuring for a new top. Below is the laminate crap top that it came with. I like real wood.  I have done this on a previous mid century desk using cherry HERE.   
This desk is made of oak. So I went to the lumberyard at bought some white oak planks. As you can see the desk top is 46". So I measured the planks at 46", thinking it would work. 
 Uh, no. Just a tad off.  What the heck??!!! 
 So. What I SHOULD have done, and what I did with the last plank before I cut, was to measure it from the desk itself, not the MDF top. I guess the other top had a beveled edge that made up that 1/2" difference. Oh well. Lesson learned. Went back to the lumberyard and bought 4 more pieces. This time had the old man do it.   Sigh. 
 Stay tuned for the finished product. I plan on doing a weathered gray ceruse on this top. 

Thursday, April 9, 2015

A New Chinoiserie Re-Do


I'm always on the lookout for unusual dressers to rehab. And I love the mid century stuff. So when I came across this one that my friend found, I pounced on it. I had already done this style in a little cabinet awhile back. HERE. I gave it a gray weathered top and coral body.  But this one I envisioned in glossy white. I had hoped to keep the wood top, but after stripping and sanding a bit, it just wasn't all that great. The body and top had gouges and missing veneer patches. 


And here's what I came up with! 

Heres the little cabinet I did from the same line. 
At first, I wanted to do the handles (the vertical gold parts are the drawer pull-outs) in black. The horizontal gold parts are what the drawers sit on. I wanted those gold. 
So first I did Klein Blue, didn't like it. 
 Then I did it in black. Didn't like the contrast. Thought I did. But my friend Jennifer over at
MiVidaVintage "made" me change it! Lol. Thank-you Jennifer. Keep in mind that every time I had to paint these handles, I had to tape off around them to keep the white clean!! 

I have to admit, the gold with the gold and white does look better. 
This was all brushed by the way. Except the bottom fretwork. I sprayed that. 

So just because I have to have something different, I give you peacocks! 
 More taping. All the white surrounding the inner portion of these drawers were all taped off and sprayed. I took a lot of time with the details on this piece. This is fabric that was applied using ModPodge. Also used it on top after watering it down. When dry, just sand the edges. 
I left the doors in their mahogany state. Yes I did sand off the old finish. Jennifer wants me to paint the inside of the doors white as well.  Any opinions??? Wood or Paint?? 



This piece would look amazing in so many different decor options!  It's For Sale!