Humble Beginnings Furniture Rehab

 Can all furniture be flipped? That, my friends, is a very good question and this little table will hopefully answer it.  As you can see this is a small, round, laminate side table. Two of the legs were loose but I was able to fix those up easy peasy. However, in doing so I discovered that this little table is MDF. Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing, unless it gets wet but this one is in good condition. It was sold by Target a few years ago and retailed for about $120.00. I found it at Goodwill last week.  After the repair and a good cleaning, I started priming with shellac. Now, since it's a laminate, it won't bleed, but because it's a laminate paint will slide right off, unless you use a bonding primer like shellac. I knew right from the start that I wanted to jazz this table up with a transfer I have in my stash but picking the right color was going to be the hard part. After looking at the  transfer   I thought I wanted to use Dixie Belle's  Soft ...

  Not a bad-looking table, but nothing jumps out at you. I picked this table up at a garage sale a couple of months ago. I didn't really have a direction for it except I knew I wanted to Shou Sugi Ban the top so I got to sanding that top. Unfortunately, the top turned out to be oak veneer and not solid oak but I was determined to make it work.  I really like Shou Sugi Ban. For those who don't know what that is, Shou Sugi Ban is the Japanese technique of waterproofing wood siding. Mainly used on cedar, but woodworkers have taken to using this technique on just about any species of wood and the finish it leaves by bringing out the grain of the wood is just beautiful. I've used it on pine successfully but this was my first time using it on a veneer. I went in very light stages so as not to set the table on fire or bubble the veneer. Just look at that grain. Once the whole thing was cleaned it was time to tackle the rest of the table. I wasn't sure what the legs were made o...

  This isn't a very good picture but I forgot to take one before I got started on it. A couple of years ago my neighbor gave this table to me when they were packing up to move. I needed something small for this area in my entry for shoes and it has worked well.  Now that we really don't need shoe storage in the entry anymore I decided to spruce it up a bit. I had just received a jar of Dixie Belle's limited release chalk paint in the color Juniper. It's a lovely warm shade of green just perfect for Fall.      So after giving it a good clean with a degreaser, I put on a coat of Zinnser Shellac primer, since the table has a laminate finish, Then I put on another two coats of primer because of the laminate finish. Zinnser Shellac usually grabs hold of any surface but it did not want to stick to this table. It kept pulling away from the edge banding and in hindsight, I should have just removed the edge banding but I didn't think about it at the time so I put three c...

I've built a few tables. I've stained a few pieces of furniture. But I have never used a piece of furniture as a canvas for artistic expression, until now. Not a really impressive canvas is it? My husband found this desk back in August at a local Goodwill. We had been searching for something our college daughter could use for studying and after she took a look at it we decided to get it for her. It was sturdy enough to do the job, but it was an ugly shade of brown. I stared at it for three days, then ignored it for two.  I was scrolling through Pinterest when this showed up...    and the link took me Here . Inspiration struck me like a rock. My daughter loves horses, but we live in the suburbs, so she must live vicariously through others for her horse fix. But I could use that love of horses to reimagine that desk. I started by removing the drawer pulls and cleaning the whole piece with a degreaser. Once it was clean inside and out I began assessing it for any damages. Fo...

 I was bored. No, that's not exactly accurate. I was tired of standing around Lowe's as my husband picked out the best 2x4's they had for one of our remodel projects four years ago. I let my mind wander and I began thinking about this blog I had read a couple of days before the trip to Lowe's. I can't remember the blogger's name but she was writing about how she wanted to recreate a Restoration Hardware table she had seen in their catalog.  It was a welded metal base with a live edge walnut top. It costs about $3000 if I remember correctly. The blogger was using an oak board and gas piping in her recreation. It was around $100 I think. We were in the middle of a remodel and I couldn't afford either of those options. But as I stood in the lumber aisle letting my mind wander I came to realize that the 2x2's on the shelf in front of me would look just like the welded base if they were black. So for $15 worth of 2x2's and a 2x10 pine board I made my vers...