The Entertainment Center Has Landed

Craigslist did me a solid and finally produced an antique, mid-century modern dresser in shabby enough condition to be given away for free.
I drove all the way from NoVa to Capitol Hill on a Nationals game day to get it: and it is worth every bad word that flew out of my mouth on 395 (you DC people will know what I mean). Ie. its the $hit.

Let me back up and regale you with the 5 other possible entertainment centers I went through first.

1. The large and in charge wardrobe that got sold on Craigslist.
- Too big and underutilized.

2. The tall red bedside table.
- Goes much better in the bedroom, from whence it came. Good fill-in during the search.

3. The long glass console table.
- Glass top and gold-tone bamboo legs. Really pretty and on-trend. Wide as a boat and has never found a good home over 9 months of floating from wall to wall in the living room. Am giving to a friend, hopefully. I can't seem to get her to take it home though, so if anyone wants it; let me know.

Up against the wall.

4. The pressed wood n 'metal' 90's special.
- The picture looked great and the people were too nice for me to change my mind on once I saw it in person. It went straight from the car to the curb. Luckily, it was kept out of the dump by a fellow Craigslist stalker.

Said curb alert post 5 minutes after I got back home.

5. The night stand with clean-ish lines.
-It was ok, but underwhelming. I stared at this one for a week and contemplated how I could redo it, but was not sold and curbed it the second I secured the mid-century piece.

Pardon the awesome Craigslist posting photo. 

*****

Then, enter this beautiful mid-century modern dresser:

Hey you, yeah you sitting on Craigslist 'free' page. Where you been all my life?

I love the peg legs, rounded edges, integrated wooden handles, and overall simplicity. It's classic mid-century, without being overwrought or too big for my living room.
While it's beautiful as a dresser, it's form, size, and # of drawers lends well to being converted into an entertainment center.

It was being given away by a really nice British lady, who's tenants had left a bunch of furniture when they moved out. It looked a bit rough, but I think thats how I was lucky enough to get it for nada.

The 'made it free' finish was dirty, dingy, scratched, and stained.

In my excitement, I'd already sanded one side here.

I started sanding with an 80 grit sandpaper on a corner to see what the wood underneath looked like, and was instantly rewarded.

Boom.

I completely sanded the whole thing twice (80 then 120 grit).

I believe it is maple.
Whatever it is; it's grain is much better than, say barley.
Har, har. Terrible 'joke', I know.

The grain of the wood popped out and was beeeeautiful. Theres plenty of dark and mid tone wood in my dining room, so I decided not to stain this piece at all. A thin layer semi-gloss of polycrylic was instantly absorbed by the thirsty old wood. Dry; it is just barely glossy in the sunlight and manages to look both antique and modern. Which clearly, is my thing.

big change in the wood

The details of the piece were even prettier once it shed the old opaque finish.

Ahhh. Those handles were a PAIN but so worth it.

As for how it became an awesome entertainment center as opposed to a beautiful dresser: just remove a drawer.
I did finish all the drawers together though, so that if I want to use it as a dresser one day, the whole thing will match.

With the top drawer gone, theres plenty of room to put in cable box, dvd player, internet modem, remotes, wires, random junk, a sleepy cat, DVD's, an elf, etc. Ya know, just the basics.

The simplicity of the dresser's form helps it to not be overwhelmed by the various stuff in the top space. Placing it perpendicular to a window also helps, as without direct sunlight into the top space, all the stuff stays shady and visually recedes.

Now to figure out how to hide those cords on the wall.




-Lindsay

Quick Refinishing of Old Chairs

One can never have enough seating. Who knows when 20 people might be over and all need to sit at the same time? Perhaps someone will have a toast or a speech? (My brother is particularly good at this mid-party)
Some people may be on the porch or squooshed together 4-on-a-3-seater-couch: but they will all be sat.
It's good to be the king have chairs.
I am of the mindset that they don't need to match, just to each be interesting and work with the other chairs in the room. To this point; I have revived many a lonely chair and added it to my living/dining/office/bed room.


My basic steps for quick and easy (1 hour or less) refinishing are as follows:

1. Scrub the bejeezus out of it.
- It may be in better shape under 30 years of dirt/tar than you thought, and can possibly stop here.
Also, nobody likes surprise spiders.

2. Tighten screws or otherwise shore up any wiggles/structural integrity issues.
- We drink enough wine in my house and don't need any help being unsteady.

3. Remove anything that rhymes with 'schmynul'.
- I've tried vinyl paint with NO success. Just get rid of it. 

4. Use Restore a Finish to renew all wood surfaces.
- Do this outside only and scrub hard. Start with steel wool and finish with a gentile paper towel wipe over the surface in the direction of the grain.
- I like leaving wood unpainted and beautiful. It doesn't age the piece if it is in good condition and any reupholstery is modern enough to elevate it out of grandma's basement.

$9 at Home Depot

 5. Fix or hide any cosmetically damaged parts.
- A favorite way to do this is to paint any damaged areas black (bilaterally), if it makes sense to do so. This masks the damaged area while sometimes highlighting a section of architectural interest. (see pic below for good example) 

6. Recover the seat with a modern fabric to bring the whole thing up to date.
- Just flip and staple on the new fabric.
- Scotch guard BEFORE reattaching cushion. Otherwise, you'll leave a snotty looking film on the wood that's less than a joy to remove.

All things done here: refinished wood, painted damaged caning, bright modern fabric.

I've seen this type of chair everywhere recently for hundreds of dollars a piece,
but this was a freebee from a former roommate who lacked vision/chair hording tendencies.
Advantage=hoarder Lindsay

As you can see in the background above, there is a black chair with a seat covered in floral mustardy fabric, which picks up on the tones and pattern of the chair in the foreground.
The background chair got painted all black because it was not beautiful old hardwood, but the black paint ties in with the painted caning on the front chair, and makes the two pieces live easily together in the same space.

Using similar style and technique on various pieces gives them an air of consistency, as was seen in an earlier post about restoring an antique arts and crafts chair.

So even though I love me some patterns; I stick to common colors and themes and thus the pieces relate to each other.
I also strive to give each patterned statement chair enough breathing room, and keep all other large fabric swaths in the area solid and calm (couches, ottomans, etc in dark blues or greys), so no one has any visual seizures and each fancy piece can stand out instead of compete.




-Lindsay

$2.50 Wooden Storage Bins

Things Organized Neatly is a blog that gives me goosebumps.

Because organization is a beautiful thing, and I'm horrible at it.

I have to create methods for organizing rather than claiming it as a quality that comes naturally. Organization works best for me when I can throw things into labeled containers rather then stack or arrange individual items. 

oooh la lots-o-boxes! 

A similar lots-o-boxes solution was needed in my garage closet for all the tools strewn over each shelf.

before the tool takeover

Most attractive, durable, and non plastic bins start at about $12 a pop. Which as with everything else, is too rich for my blood.
Through my Pinteresting addiction, I'd seen a good tutorial for making cheap wooden bins here.

My boxes would need to be bigger to hold lots of tools, and lighter so I could easily lift them when full of said tools. Handles on both sides were also a must.

Using closet shelf measurements, I figured out how big I could make the boxes. They needed to be narrow enough to fit between the shelf brackets, and low enough to leave an inch or two of space open at the top for  I'm-feeling-too-lazy-to-even-pull-this-sucker-out tool deposits.
I made a cut list and headed to the hardware store. The boxes would need to be made of real wood, as MDF just doesn't last. I found the least expensive plywood I thought would stand up to the task: 1/4in. x 4ft x 8ft underlayment. With some quick math wizardry (for which I am widely NOT known), I figured out I could do all the boxes with just one $14 sheet in just a few cuts. A lovely staff member performed all the cuts I needed for the 45 sides and bottom pieces to make 9 boxes. I also grabbed some inexpensive 1x2's and got them cut to size for the corner pieces.

At home, I assembled the boxes the same way that Kristi did in her tutorial. I did use fewer screws because I didn't need to attach multiple separate boards on each side. And I was running out of screws that day.

sandpaper and sponge brushes, reporting for duty

I then sanded all the edges, as many of the plywood pieces had splintered veneers from being cut.
A little polycrylic sealed them up and brought out the grain of the wood.

For handles, I looked at the cheapest hardware store options and they were unattractive and would have almost doubled the per-unit cost of the boxes. Nahhhh. I could do better.
During my pallet excavating at the firehouse for the pallet table, I'd seen a big pile of old throw away fire hose. There are all sorts of things being made of of fire hose lately, why not handles?

So I got permission, took one, and cut it up while on duty into pieces about 1.5 x 6in.
I drilled two holes in each strip and two holes in the front and back panels of each box.  The distance between the holes in the strips were about 1.5 inches greater than that on the boxes, so when I lined the holes up and bolted the pieces together, the hose strip would buckle and have room for my hand.
I painted on chalkboard squares in roughly rectangular shapes on the prettier end of each box and set them to dry.

 Handles were cut from the side of the hose with the most writing

I split my tools up into 9 logical piles, used chalk to label each bin, and loaded em up.
I went with chalk rather than a permanent label because I already had chalk paint and chalk, and it made sense to use them since the content of the bins will change over the course of their lives.
The current bin types are: Adhesives, Paint, Hardware, Cutting/Sanding, Frequently Used Tools, Tools, Extra Tools, Housekeeping, Pets.

Into the closet they went, all pretty and ready to keep me organized.

life is like a box of hardware.....full of nuts

They are fantastic for pulling out and grabbing a tool, or picking up the whole box to take with me to a project location.
This (and only this) closet is now a highlight on the house tour when people come over.

Cost breakdown:

plywood - $14

corner wood -$5

chalkboard paint - already had it

fire hose - free
  nuts n bolts -$4  

$23

Price per bin = $2.50

-Lindsay

Creating custom adjustable shelving, ala the Container Store

Aside from painting top to bottom, built-in closet shelving was the first homeowner improvement project I tackled. I was giddy, I was broke, but I had a plan.

I may have mentioned it before, but my place is the condo-o-storage. It has more useful and plentiful storage than any ~1000 condo I've ever seen. Clearly, it was meant to be mine.
There are a remarkable FOUR hallway closets; a pantry, a linen closet, a coat closet, and a big empty space closet with a single upper shelf.
With a myriad of tools and materials for all my renovation projects, and no garage; I had to come up with a better storage solution than tossing everything in the big-empty-space closet.
I dreamed of Container Store Elfa shelving with vertical silver tracks and wooden shelves.

same size and # of shelves as I needed in the closet

Only $745 installed or $565 'DIY'........
Oh please to the %*#$ no.

I had a pile of fantastic old pine boards salvaged several years ago from a house I'd rented that was being torn down. They were the standard closet upper shelves, already finished in a pretty amber color.

comme ça

Using them for the shelves' surface was the linchpin in making this project possible, as I couldn't afford to buy all new hardwood boards, and saggy MDF was not gonna happen.
The hallway closet door doesn't run the full width of the closet, so I planned for 2 deep shelves on the bottom and 3 shallower ones above to get as much surface space as possible while allowing easy access to all shelves.

There were several different shelving systems at  my local Home Depot.
Pricey name brand ClosetMaid? Um, no thanks sister, I'll keep the $150 you would have cost and keep lookin.
Rubbermaid was the champ at $8 an upright, $3.75 for long brackets, and $3 for short ones.

upright

bracket

This broke out to:

$8 x 2 uprights =$16

$3.75 x 2 pairs of brackets = $15

$3 x 3 pairs of brackets = $18

    $4 x 1 box of anchors and screws = $4    

$53

Since $53 is about 9% of the high end $565 price tag: I was a proud, proud, thrifty gal.

Handy Dad and I ripped out the single upper shelf already in the closet to install the new tracks. The two holes we accidentally punched in the wall were just a bonus.
We hung the tracks starting about 6 inches down from the ceiling and ending about 8 inches up from the ground. This covered all the areas where I'd possibly want to have brackets for a shelf.
We then used the ripped out shelf as a guide to cut the pine boards to size. Something we learned here, that we keep re-learning; is that in a 40 year old building: nothing is square. Start with a pattern and then adjust for each instance of that item. That being said, unsuprisingly some shelves came out with a little wiggle room and others had to be trimmed down to fit. Between the track and the pine boards, we used scrap wood from Handy Dad's impressive garage collection to fill out the depth each shelf needed.
Each bracket has a hole for a screw, but I have neither done anything with that nor noticed the need to since construction.

hello there Garage Closet!

Not the prettiest girl at the dance, but heck, she's gonna be a glorified tool box. No worries princess.

Having gotten the hang of it, we went ahead and knocked out another set in the 2nd bedroom closet. There were two identical closets in there, each with a top shelf and hanging bar. Shelving was badly needed in one of them for office/sporting/random items, as all that hanging space would be wasted.

The wall came out unscathed on this one, but still no beauty queen in sight with those two franken-shelves on the bottom. Again though, its a closet. No one but the 5 people that read this blog (hi honey!) will see it; and inexpensive/functional/awesome always beats accumulating more debt. The mortgage alone is plenty!




-Lindsay

Rebuilding and Updating an Arts & Crafts Chair

'Antsy' is a vast understatement of how I felt while under contract, but waiting to close on my place. It had such possibility, and so many projects I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into. But, as it also belonged to someone else, and I only break into structures for fun on the weekends when there's a fire (rare) or mischievous kid (more frequent) behind the door; I had to simmer down and work on something non-structure related.

I really like the work a lot of people are doing now to update old chairs with new fun upholstery. Chairloom is a particular favorite. Be prepared to drool at some of their before & after's.

so chic and understated

oooooh sweet nelly

I would LOVE to find something worthy of saving up the $$$$ to have them upholster one day, a beautiful Edwardian sofa or an intricate arm chair. Clearly worth it if you can afford it, but for now, I tried my hand at updating a piece I'd gotten for free off of Craigslist.

plaid makes him grumpy

I loved the simplicity of the piece; totally devoid of decoration save for the beauty of the hardwood. I thought that it would take easily to being modernized while still retaining a good dose of vintage charm. The wood was super dry with some broken areas, and the seat was lumpy and structurally unsound; so it was total reconstruction time.

Dis-assembly of the chair uncovered errant Cheerios, plastic straws, pet hair, and general schmutz.

delish

I tried to take a picture of each step to remind myself how the chair was put together, in case I forgot by re-assembly time. Luckily for me, this thing was Ikea v1.0: everything had dowels with corresponding slots and wing nuts, so it came apart with the removal of 4 bolts and a couple of seal-bark accompanied tugs.

smellya later trim

evidence of repeated reupholstering

Long story short: I ripped out everything: fabric, millions of tiny copper nails and staples, all the horse/hog hair padding, old strapping, etc. Minus the nails, which are being saved for something in the future; this was fun and quick! 

I scrubbed, repaired, sanded, conditioned, stained, and poly'd the wood. This part was a bit tedious, as it took a while to get into each nook and crannie several times over with multiple coats of stain, poly, and waiting. It was totally worth though, as the wood is now beautiful and healthy enough to last a few more decades.

mahog-a-liscious

I wanted to un-grandpa the fabric (as much as I love grandpas), and do a non-girly floral pattern. Joann's often has good coupons you can find online, and frequent sales; so I went on a sale day (50% off) with an additional coupon in hand (40% off) to get strapping, foam blocks, sheet batting, fabric, and trim. Foam is EXPENSIVE, but with the sale and the coupon I managed to spend only about $30 for it, which otherwise would have been close to $100. 

Ain't nobody got time for that. 

I used the old fabric as a guide to cut the new fabric, leaving an additional two inches all around to account for non-stretchy fabric, my own inevitable mistakes, and trimming later. I re-strapped, padded, and upholstered the seat and back panel in the same way they were before.

pardon the washed out colors

This was a great first 'big' reupholstering project because I didn't need to sew or have any special upholsterer knowledge, just enthusiasm and the ability to use a staple gun. Said enthusiasm broke the first two staple guns, but the third one is still alive....for now.

I'm exceedingly pleased with the results and the chair has become a favorite place to sit, especially for my daddy-o, who likes the cup-friendly wide arm rests.

Before & After

even the cat changed pattern

-Lindsay