Dresser Turned Entertainment Center w/ Wine Rack

When I bought my condo, I was very fortunate to get an awesome neighbor downstairs who has turned out to be a great friend, almost like a fun second grandpa. I knew we would get along just great when he showed me this amazing old antique lamp that he has had with him for 30+ years. He has full on cable and I don't, so we occasionally watch Flea Market Flip. After seeing my work and some of the fun projects on the show, he asked me to make him an entertainment center with a wine rack. 

So I was on a mission to find the perfect piece for him. I found a great Henredon dresser on CL while perusing it on a Saturday night. Small world, it turned out I knew the person selling it. The next morning, I went to pick it up. And then it sat in my garage for quite awhile. Finally around January, I started working on it.

I had never reconstructed a dresser before. First, I started taking of the back. It had these very old nails in it. Here is a picture as I was taking of the back. I then took out all the drawer slides and stops.

My vision was to buy a big piece of wood that I could slide in through the back to make the shelf for the cable box and router. I found a big piece of wood a Home Depot that would do the trick. I also bought two pieces of wood to cut for the wine rack. My dad came over and helped me cut all the wood. Here is the dresser with the wood piece after it was cut. Had to make sure it fit!

I then sanded everything using my Ryobi sander and stained it all with General Finishes Java Gel Stain. Here are the pieces after they were stained. I absolutely love how the stain really brought out the wood grain.

After this, I sanded down the top and stained that using the Java gel stain. 

Once I was happy with the top, I taped plastic to protect it and began spraying. My neighbor picked out Tuscany Hillside for the color. I used my favorite HomeRight Finish Max Sprayer for this. 

For the two middle drawers, I wanted to keep those wood. so I sanded those down and stained them as well. Here is the before and after.

And there here she is, all finished after I sprayed on topcoat! I used HPTC in satin and also wetsanded the paint prior to spraying on topcoat to try to get that antiqued look. I apologize for the photos, didn't get to bring it to my usual staging spot. 

So happy she is finished and in her new home. My neighbor absolutely loves it. He did eventually hide all his cords, thank goodness. My cord OCD'ness was on high alert. Hope everyone is has a great weekend!

-Shayla

My Biggest Build to Kick Off 2016 - Dining Room Table

Happy New Year to all my readers! I can't believe it is already 2016, crazy! One of my goals for 2016 is to update this blog more and get going on more projects. I joined the Fab Furniture Flippin' Contest group in late November and can't wait wait to join in. The month of January filled up very quickly, so I am hoping to join in the next few months.

So, the month of December was a big month for myself. I took the CFA level 1 exam on 12/5, which really slowed down everything, including furniture and this blog. Then right after that, my father bought a condo near me and I helped him move and get settled. One of his housewarming gifts was this amazing sign I made at Board & Brush. Here we are on the one of the most windy days in Wisconsin while it is raining of course on December 14.

I work usually about one night a week at their Hartland, WI location teaching a class. I highly recommend checking them out and it would be a great business venture to open up a franchise location for all you DIY'ers our there. Wisconsin is starting to get a lot of them, so I haven't opened one yet, but I would love to.. maybe in 2016! Here is a quick sample of some other signs I have made there, can you tell I am dating a Wade? 

 

 

Anyways, with my dad moving, he (we because he needs help with decor) decided that he was going to get all new furniture. It helped that the buyer of his other place wanted it furnished too. So I had a little boost of confidence with furniture building after my farmhouse bench and thought it would be a great idea to make him a dining room table. I have always seen Shanty 2 Chic's plans for their Restoration Hardware inspired dining room table and decided to try it.

My dad's dining room was not going to accommodate a table of that size, so I made the top smaller, about 3x5. I was going to try to make the legs smaller, but decided to just not make the middle 4x4 quite as long. Here are some pictures during construction in my garage.

Here are some tips if you decide to make this. Kreg has a 6 inch clamp that is supposed to hold the boards together where you drill. I skipped buying this and I would kneel and apply pressure while drilling. This seemed to work pretty well. I would be tempted to try the clamp though if I make any more of these. I sanded the table top when it was completely together and this seemed to help all the little variations in the top (there were a few). It also helped a ton to have a friend over to help (my furniture friend Kim) because of the size of the project.

This was how far I had got the first day (about 5 hours). The top was assembled and I had the bottom lightly set up so I could see how level the table would be and for the height. Next, I built the legs with my Ryobi 10 inch compounding miter saw.

Once I finished these up, I put the top on again and everything was pretty level and good enough for me. 

Next, I brought out one of my Goodwill chair finds that I would eventually like to refinish and sat at the table. It was pretty high, but I went with it. Hoping to find some tall chairs (fingers crossed). Anyone know where to find any? Next I sanded out the table and all the legs with my palm sander. I would recommend starting with a rough grit (80 or 100) and then going over it again with 220 to get it nice and smooth.

For stain, I tried Varathane's fast dry wood stain in Early American. My dad really likes the rustic look and  I wanted to get this done quickly. It worked well. The directions for this recommend staining everything once it is assembled. If I make another one of these tables, I would stain the mitered supports for the legs of the table before. It is really hard to get underneath them. Then I would just touch them up after it was all assembled.

I then put 3 coats of  my favorite satin poly on the top and two coats on the legs. Then came time for assembly, I was so nervous!

We flipped everything upside down so I could drill the legs into the tabletop. Then we flipped it over and got it set up and realized it really was super tall. So we took the pads off and I am still looking for some taller chairs to put with it.

Overall, it was a lot of work. I probably had at least 20 hours into it. But I just love it! My dad does too.

What do you all think?

Thanks so much for reading!
Shayla

Linking up to: The Crowned Goat | Thirty Eighth Street | Making It In The Mountains | DIY By Design | A Stroll Thru Life | Chic On a Shoestring | AKA Design

Farmhouse Bench

My first furniture build is in the books folks and here she is! I got a referral from a very nice girl I had met through a local buy/sell group to build a bench. When I built my Shanty-2-Chic floating shelves, I definitely got a confidence boost that I could build furniture. So when I got asked to build this bench, I was very excited to build it. From Shanty-2-Chic's website, I came across the Rogue Engineer and follow them on IG. So when I got this order, I immediately logged onto his website and came across this plan.

I started searching for some similar legs that I could get locally. Home Depot had these beautiful legs and of course there were only 3 when I got there. Just my luck. So I found someone to see if they had more in the back and he pulled them up for inventory and saw they had 5. Well, there was one more in the box next to it! Phew, so I grabbed them and the wood and couldn't wait to get started.

The build for the bench went well for my first time. The Rogue Engineer's plans are great. In total, I spent about 3-4 hours building it. If I had to do it again, it could be completed in 2-3 hours. Here are some pictures of the build.

And there she is all put together. Next was the stain. I chose to go with Rustoleum's Kona stain for the top and then Varathane gel stain in natural for the base of the table to match the clients current dining room table. To seal the bench and protect it, I went with my favorite polyurethane in satin. I am in love with this bench. If only I had a big enough dining room for my own. Someday.

Thanks so much for reading!

                                                                            Shayla

Linked up to: The Curator's Collection | Thirty Eighth Street | The Painted Drawer | The Crowned Goat | Finding Silver Pennies | Chic on a Shoe String | DIY By Design | Designer Trapped | Making It In The Mountains