Armoire Do-over

Feeling encouraged after my lil yellow table turned out ok, I thought it wouldn't be too too scary to tackle a larger piece.  That said, I had a rule about buying furniture while we were still renting- and that was not to do it.  I'd just hate to invest and fall in love with a piece of furniture that wouldn't fit in our next space.  Don't you agree?

Well, low and behold the minute we put an offer on our house I started to nest.  I found this piece on craigslist for $100 cash and convinced Jake we "needed" it for the new house.  With our closing date a month away and no real place to store it, my parents kindly enough offered up a corner in their garage... a spot I found myself in several nights after work until it was move-in ready.

This is how he (I personify inanimate objects a lot) looked the day I got him:

The first step was to remove what hardware I could- there was no getting the door of, but the handles all came off easy enough.  After giving him a good sanding, I taped the door trim to protect the glass and started priming.  This guy definitely took two coats of basic primer, but it was important to get it right since I planned to paint the shelves white.

Next came the color!  Something you should know about me is that I don't typically pay full price for a gallon of paint.  I'm that person frequenting Lowe's and Home Depot's reject section snagging anything in the blue green family or completely neutral for $5 or less a can.  So far it's worked for me.  But in an effort to be honest, I didn't have anything other than primer when it came to white, so I did buy a quart of a grey/white color.  There, now everything is out in the open. 

Making progress...

Once I was done painting, it was time to add the finishing touches.  The below coral handles I'd purchased in white and planned to replace the original drawer handles with didn't quite work out. The knob on the door is connected to the cabinet's locking mechanism making it difficult to remove and the combination of it with the new handles just wasn't working for me.  Oddly enough I'm happy with the original pulls... it keeps a bit of the character for sure, but I'll let you decide for yourself.

Here he is in his new "home".

Well, what do you think?

kitchen addition

After refinishing my first piece of furniture I enjoyed it so much that it immediately became a hobby.  I'm constantly searching on craigslist for a cheap piece with potential and find myself wishing more and more that we had a garage so I could actually buy and store the deals I come across.  The reality is though that we don't have a garage and the outdoor space we do have (albeit significantly larger than at our last place) isn't really conducive to storing random sized pieces of furniture just sitting in the que for a makeover.  Facing that truth has resulted in a slow progression of this hobby, but forward movement all the same.

The most recent remake is the below antique magazine rack that belonged to Jake's dad.  His mom was happy to provide me a free piece to take another stab at refinishing and seemed please to clear out some space in her house at the same time.  While I am wishing now I'd taken the time to snap a picture before,  I can only say that is was stained a medium brown and had little wear considering its age.  For that reason, sanding wasn't needed and I could go straight into painting!

I know it seems a bit weird to have a magazine rack in the kitchen, but Jake had the idea to put the recipe books in it the way we did, and once those were in place it seemed odd to put in any room other than the kitchen.  The wall that it's currently on is prime real estate in our kitchen and seemed appropriate since it got lost in the only other nook available.

If I could change on thing it would be the height of the table (I said "if"); it isn't unusually short but both here and in the other spot we tried, it didn't seem quite tall enough.  With that much space between the top of the basket (conveniently storing dish towels) and the bottom of the picture it seems to put emphasis on the gap between items, but the picture couldn't go any lower and the basket can't get any taller.  What I can say is thank goodness for the lime green, it helps it to pop against the wall and the colorful recipe books demand attention!

all done

I'm happy to report that the table I blogged about renovating last month is done, and considering  it was my first attempt at refinishing a piece of furniture I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Additionally, in light of being a first for me, the rule was that I couldn't spend a lot of money on it.  Which was fair because based on my history there was no guarantee that I would actually start the project or use the table when and if I ever finished it.  In keeping with the rules, the only items I purchased were sanding blocks (around $9) and glass knobs ($10).  The "butter" paint I borrowed from our neighbor and the rest came from my own blood, sweat, and tears... well just sweat, but still.

Here is a reminder of how the table looked when I found it:

And this is the finished product: