Luck of the Irish

Do I have something to share with you and you're going to be soooooo jealous! I'm thanking the famed luck of the Irish for this one :)

Today I went for a run, trying to maintain some sort of fitness level for the winter months. I changed the route a little for no good reason and here's what I spotted, sitting on the curb, next to the garbage! Imagine my horror!! 

• I ran past,
• stopped and went back to inspect,
• rang the doorbell and asked the homeowner if I could pick her garbage (she must've thought the sweaty lady on her porch was KAH-RAZY!),
• lugged it 1/2 mile home right then and there; I wasn't going to take the chance of going home to get the car and it being gone by the time I got back!!

It's rusty...

It's crusty...

It's heavy metal, and STURDY...

Hmmmm....

This is from some research on the web - same-ish sticker

So, I shortened the run and gained a weight-lifting session :)

After a little research, I found this is made by the Cosco/Hamilton Manufacturing Corporation out of Columbus, Indiana, circa 50's. I like the red and white of it, but it does need a little scrub down. It's just so crazy what people will throw out! This was made to last - no flimsy metal on this baby.

What do you think I should do with it? Repaint...same colors or different? Just scrub it down and seal it, keeping the rust and crust? I do think I'm going to put it on casters as the holes are there on the bottom of the legs. I'm going to let it speak to me before anything to it.

Don't be hatin' cuz you didn't find it first...

Showing this off at:

Type A Decorating Hunter Gatherer Party #2

Table Makeover Tutorial and Reveal!

Whew! This was a big project for me, but it was a lot of fun getting back to working with wood furniture.

This table was at the curb, unloved and ready for the landfill. It was weathered and chippy, but I thought it could be saved.

Here's a quick photo timeline of this project to bring you up to date or you can read about it in more detail here:

Yuk - it needed a good cleaning from being out in the weather

Check out this chip-tastic leg!

Taken apart to clean and sand

Sanded, cleaned with bleach, glued and clamped

At this point, the tabletop was put back together and was ready for its top treatment. I'm in love with the signs that are everywhere on the web, and thought one would be cute as a tabletop. I broke out the freezer paper as this was going to be a big stencil. 

Tools needed were rulers, exacto knives, a tape measure, pencil and tape. I don't know why I had the needle nose pliers out *shrugs*.

The freezer paper was taped onto the tabletop. The letters were drawn free-hand to get an idea of the scale.

If you don't like to sketch, and have access to a vinyl-cutting machine, this would be much easier. Letters in the desired font could be printed out on regular paper and then transferred using the pencilled-and-traced method. I liked the look of the letters, and went with the sketch as they were.

I was making this table to use in the basement, mostly as a place to play games or set out food if we're having a party. I wanted it to be personal to my husband - he's Frank, he's a cyclist, and he works on his bikes. I wanted it to look like an old sign that was re-used as a table top as there was no way to disguise the weathered look of this wood!

I cut the big letters out with the exacto knife, but scissors would work just as well. The free-hand bike didn't look old enough, so I got one from clip art that worked better.

Now that the stencil was sketched and cut out, I put it aside and it was time to paint the top. I hemmed and hawed a little a lot about the color, but red is the color in the bar area, and it seemed like red would be a color that an old sign would have been. Besides, it's only paint. If it didn't work, I can paint it again, right?

I didn't want a completely covered top and dry-brushed haphazardly (my favorite painting method). The red was a little bright and a little shiny and needed a good sanding.

This is after some sanding

The stencil got put back on and taped down. Now, the wood was pretty warped, and the stencil ended up being more of a guide than an actual stencil. I did find that by painting from the stencil onto the wood, instead of from the wood towards the edge of the stencil, it bled less underneath. I just held it down as the paint was going on.

As you can see, I was too lazy to cut out the 'Sales/Service' bit. With the stencil not being able to be stuck down, what was the point? I would just free-hand it (like the 'p' in 'shop').

Here you can see the difference after sanding the lettering down. I sanded this A LOT to get the look of a sign that had been out in the elements for a long time. It was all done with hand sanding so I could stop, take a look, go back over it, etc. More control = happy Jill (in 99% of my life experiences). Plus my arms were getting a great workout!

Started working on the table right out of the shower - no make up, in curlers. Just keeping it real :)

After painting and stenciling and sanding...it still looked a little off somehow. I decided to use a mix of glaze and jacobean stain to take down the bright factor.

Glaze, stain, rags, paint pen, sandpaper and protection for my hand

Here, only one leaf was done. I brushed it on and quickly wiped it off with an old t-shirt. The wood soaked up the stain, and I like!

More glaze/staining, wiping off and giving the top some depth.

I still wanted to futz with it, so I took my silver paint pen and outlined the 'Sales/Service' and old time phone number. Which made it too shiny. Which means even more sanding.

My arms informed me they would mutiny if I outlined/sanded the larger letters, so this is where I stopped. Sometimes, I need to step away and let it sink in before making any more decisions. Turns out my arms were right and I love it!

 The legs got a coating of poly to keep them from chipping any more and to seal the bare wood.

This corner has been a dumping ground for awhile...

...and I won't lie and say all this stuff has found a permanent home, but it's a work in progress. 

Here's the table in that corner

I need chairs, stuff on the walls, etc. This is just the start :) Working on the chairs - a friend went pickin' and found a few for me to work on. Thanks Anne Marie!!

Sharing this project here:

Tales from Bloggeritaville
Someday Crafts

Todays Creative Blog
A Picture is Worth 1000 Words 

Domestically Speaking

Bargain Shopping Paradise

The TShirt Diaries

The Shabby Chic Cottage

Somewhat Simple 
Handy Man, Craft Woman
Primitive and Proper
Funky Junk Interiors SNS
Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays at Coastal Charm
Miss Mustard Seed Furniture Friday

Suburban Picker

One of the big reasons we bought our house in the first place was because the basement was already finished. It had a kickin' bar, a full bath (so I don't have to share), and a closed off utility room. We had just been through two major renovations, and we couldn't face another one.

This basement is not without its challenges, mostly because of my own mistakes; exhibit A is the red couch fail. That has now been resolved with a lovely leather sectional, but this corner:

...was still there. The dumping ground of old office furniture, curb alert items, a treadmill, a nightstand that was replaced but still in good condition, and stuff that the hubs wants to keep.

This sat for a few weeks, mocking me every time I sat down. It was time to do something about it and the plan was to use my Suburban Pickings. I had my own version of American Pickers with my Curb Alert post where my picks were a weathered and chippy table, a lamp table, and these two little drawer units.

The drawer units were your basic put-it-together-yourself variety, and who doesn't need more storage? They sat in my garage for a few weeks:

I had a nightstand of the same color wood and thought they might work together somehow.

The first thing necessary to start working on the basement corner was to get everything out. The bookcase was left over from my husband's Gator office (that still lives...no painting yet).

Everything got shifted to the bar. If it takes over the bar, this project will get done sooner in order to clear off the drinking area :)

Here's an idea of what the drawers and nightstand are going to become:

Yes, they aren't the same heights. Yes, I could take off the casters to make them closer to the same height. Will I? No - because I have an idea (ruh roh).

The color of the wood is obviously going to get changed...white? black? distressed? glazed? How about this:

Ahhhh...oil rubbed bronze metallic spray paint. This stuff even makes cheap wood furniture look good.

The little drawers were going to get cute labels, but in the end, the paint/stencil combo on the spray paint was soooooo not working out. Simple numbered drawers it is then. Even those came out a little wonky, but if you don't look too hard at them, it's not so bad:

check out that green, green grass!

See? If you squint, you can't even see how badly the stenciling went :) I might outline them with a paint pen, but then again, I might not. It depends on how motivated I am and how badly my design distraction kicks in...there are a few other projects waiting for me that would be way more fun than perfecting these numbers!

My big idea was basically to put a top over the whole shebang and leave the little cubby; maybe put a basket in it; maybe just let it be an open space.

I had a hallelujah moment when this was spotted at the back of the garage:

This was from a headboard I built quickly for a condo I staged and we had been lugging it around through 3 moves. It was a little spider-webby on the back:

This was a seriously long piece of plywood, prestained and poly'ed and ready to go...once it was cut to size. Good thing I bought my husband that table saw years ago!

Isn't this a pretty piece of plywood? I spent a little more for hardwood plywood, and it makes a difference when staining. I stained the two cut edges and it looked good enough to not need the finish edging.

I put the two drawer units on the underside of the top and thought it would be a good thing to screw them down so the table top didn't slide.

I actually measured and remeasured to make sure the overhangs were the same on all sides - not my strongpoint, but it needed to be done, so I sucked it up and did it :)

Laziness ruled the day and only one screw was put in - seems to work:

This is now a storage/sofa table that makes it easy to put a plate down (we generally eat on the couch - nothing formal here):

Here it is with the laptop in the cubby and books on the shelf:

I even changed out the knob from the wooden one to a cool iron one. Spray paint brought the whole look together nicely!

I wanted to get this done by our 12th anniversary, but that was a little ambitious. I surprised my husband with it today and he loved it, of course. He's so supportive of my crazy creative chaos!

Linking up with:

Sisters of the Wild West
Under the Table and Dreaming
Tatertots and Jello
Junker Newbie
Miss Mustard Seed
Funky Junk Interiors SNS
Type A Anything Goes Party