Humble Beginnings Furniture Rehab

         Do you remember that desk I did for my daughter? Here's a reminder.  Well, she isn't the only girl I know with a love of horses. The daughter of my dearest friend Amy is too. She's actually training to be a barrel racer and has the sweetest horses named Hippy and Secret. Well, my sweet friend, Amy, and her family moved to their dream home a couple of months ago and I wanted to make something extra special for Madison. It's always the homeowners who get the housewarming gifts and the kids are usually left out.  I started with an idea, then I remembered I had another sheet of the  decoupage paper I used on my daughter's desk. I knew I wanted to go in a totally different direction with this piece than I did with my daughter's desk, I just didn't know which direction.   I had planned on upcycling a framed art piece I picked up at the thrift store but the frame, mat, and existing art were all one piece or just really glued together well. Turns out the a

  I love building tables. There is something so cathartic about cutting wood and melding it together in a way that makes it beautiful. Then there are those tables where the math makes me crazy and I question the very existence of tables. Angles, lines, diameter, convergence. Not in my wheelhouse. So I did the only logical thing I could do. I walked away from the frustration and talked my husband into dealing with the math.  It all started when I came across this  blog  post I found on Pinterest. I loved the table base and I wanted it for my kitchen table. After remodeling our kitchen I wanted a slightly smaller table than the one we currently have. The blogger built a smaller table than what I wanted and so the angles had to be changed to accommodate the larger size I wanted. Hence my frustration over the math. But my wonderful hero-husband figured it all out, after several attempts and a lot of frustration of his own. We used untreated pine 2x4's we picked up from Lowe's.    

 She's not much to look at, is she? The top was a total wreck with deep scratches in the veneer and the original stain was splotchy. Plus there were red marker scribbles. But she has incredible bones and with some loving care could be quite stylish again. The first thing I needed to do was give the top a good cleaning and start sanding. After cleaning I gave the top a good inspection and discovered the veneer was quite thin, so I was going to have to be especially careful sanding so I didn't break the veneer. It took an hour to get this far. That stain was not giving up easily and the scratches were really embedded into the veneer. Between my orbital sander, the detail sander, and hand sanding I was about to give up. I could just paint the top and call it a day, but I couldn't do it. The top could be beautiful I just knew it. I just needed to be a little bit patient. Which is not my style.  Finally, the sanding was done and it only took an hour and a half for a 4'x4'