Refinish an Old Kitchen Table

When I was getting married and moving out, all of my friends and family seemed to see it as their opportunity to get rid of all their old, unwanted furniture. "Give it to the newlyweds! they need furniture," must have been what everyone was thinking. In many case, this came in handy. I didn't have to buy expensive furniture or hunt it down somewhere, but a lot of the stuff I was given was old and not really fitting with my preferred style. Luckily, spray paint exists! I've refinished quite a few items now, but I feel like my kitchen table is one of the most dramatic transformations.

This table is really well built and stable and it has two leaves so it can be small enough for six people or large enough for ten to twelve if needed. However, it wasn't in great condition and I wasn't a big fan of the oak color. I don't even have a good before picture because I didn't think to take one and I always had a tablecloth on it to hide the scratched and stained tabletop.

Here is the table with the table cloth on it when it was in my apartment.

Now that I have a house with a garage, I can paint stuff!

I started off by flipping the table over and painting the underside. As you can see. I laid down newspaper and taped it in place so that I wouldn't ruin the top of the table. Doing the painting first affords you the chance to sand off any stray paint that might accidentally get on the tabletop where you're going to sand.

I lightly cleaned off the surfaces and sanded lightly sanded it all over so that the paint would hold well. I did about 3 light coats of paint an hour apart. 

I realized after I finished painting the base, that I had forgotten to pull out the leaves and paint those as well. I taped and covered the table top and spray painted the section just below the tabletop (the frame? skirt? I'm not sure what the area is called).

If you're worried about the floor, put a tarp down so you don't get that nice over spray ring on the ground.

After I had finished painting the bottom white, I sanded all the top pieces. I started with a 80 grit sand paper on a palm or pad sander to remove all the old varnish. After most of the old finish was gone, I moved to a 120 grit sand paper on my sander. I smoothed it out with a 200 grit paper. (If you're not familiar with sand paper, the lower numbers mean rougher paper and the higher numbers mean more smooth paper. You usually work from low to high to remove old finishes and then even and smooth the surface as you go)

After the old finish was removed, the surface was smooth, and the table cleaned with a rag towel, I stained it with a dark walnut colored stain. Maybe because the color I chose was so dark, the stain was really thick, almost like paint. I applied it with a 3" paint brush. When I tried to add a second coat, the first coat started coming off. I've never had this happen with stain before (it's supposed to stain, right?), so I fixed the area I had tried to re-coat and left it alone.

When the stain was thoroughly dry (I believe I waited a full day), I started applying the varnish. I did 2 coat in one day, 2 hours apart and 2 coats the next day, also 2 hours apart.

One of my future projects, reupholstering and converting a chair into a rocker, is in the background there.

At that point, I started working on the chairs. I cleaned them all, which was no small task since they were 20 years old. I use hot water and in some case kitchen cleaner to remove dirt and stains as best as I could.Once they were dry, I used a medium (120) grit sand paper to rough up the surfaces of the chairs. I used the palm sander on all the flat surfaces I could, especially the seat, where I knew there would be a lot of use. I didn't strip the old varnish, because I didn't want to prime the chairs, just made a good surface for the paint to adhere to.

This is the paint I used on the chairs. It worked really well and I love the color.

I lightly spray each chair twice while the chair was upright and then coated it again the next day while the chair was upside down to get all the spots I missed. After doing any necessary touch-ups, I coated all the chairs with two gloss clear coats to protect the paint and keep the color from transferring to other surfaces. I think the clear coat was pretty import because it's such a bold color that if it rubs against the white table it would definitely leave a mark. 

After a solid week of drying in the garage, I brought the table and chairs into my kitchen/dining room. I have to say, I love them now! I'm so glad I refinished them instead of buying something new. They've also held up really well. The table surface looks great and it matches my kitchen perfectly!

Picture Frame Turned Earring Rack

While redecorating my bedroom, I lost the surface on top of which I stored my jewelry. I was also really tired of fighting with my old earring holder and so I decided to make a new one. The new one had to be wall mounted to fit in my new bedroom layout. My problem is that I have a lot of jewelry, so my new earring needed a lot of space. My other frustration with my old earring rack was that I had to take the backs off the earring and put them on again behind the rack. This took so much time and I so frequently dropped the earring back that I wasn't wearing them because it was too much of a hassle. I had seen a couple things online that I liked, but most didn't have as much storage as I needed. So, I came up with this picture frame turned earring rack! My favorite part of this rack is that you can just lift the earrings off and set the on it!!!

Materials
11"x14" picture frame (or however large you want yours to be)
3 strips of wood 1/4"x1/8"x36" (available at Joann or other hobby stores)
Wood Glue
Spray Paint
Dremel & Cutting Wheel attachment

1. Remove the glass and other innards from your picture frame.
2. Cut the strips of wood to the size of your frame. 11" in my case.
3. Make a mark every 1/4" across the strips of wood starting and ending 1/2" from the edge
4. With the dremel, make an 1/8" deep cut from the top of the wood at each mark.
5. Glue the strips of wood to the inside of the frame with the wood glue.
6. After the glue it completely dry, spray paint the whole rack, if desired.
7. Done!

DIY Upholstered Headboard

Last month I decided to redecorate my bedroom. One of the items I need most was a new bed frame and headboard. I started by making the headboard below. I hesitated for a while before starting this project because I thought it would be really difficult, but it ended up being much easier than I thought. I had a few setbacks, but with a little trial and error, I eventually got it right. If you decide to take on this project yourself, you have the advantage of learning from my mistakes :-)

Materials
Sturdy 6'x4' Plywood Board (for Cal King, wider for King)
6'x4' (for Cal King, wider for King) - 1" thick Foam
Twin Size Batting - High-loft
Upholstery Fabric - 5'x7' minimum
150-250 Upholstery Nails
Staple Gun and Staples
Adhesive Spray

I started by picking the design I wanted for my headboard and drawing it onto the plywood. First, I cut the plywood down to the correct width. Then I used my pin-string-pencil compass method of making arcs, since I couldn't find anything to trace that was the right size. (This method involves tying a string between a pencil and a pin, holding the pin at the center of the circle, and then rotating the pencil around the pin in an arc, keeping the the string tight as you draw)

After the design was drawn onto the board, I used my jigsaw to cut out the shapes. This was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I started at one side, cut out the arcs, making my way to the center, then starting again from the other side.

I then laid the 1" foam on the board and cut it 2 inches from the edge of the board with sharp fabric scissors, but a large rotary cutter might have been easier.

I sprayed the front of the wood and the back of the foam with spray adhesive by lifting half of it off the board, spraying it, and laying it back in place. Then I repeated it from the other side. Next, I laid the batting over it all and soothed it out.

After I smoothed it around all the edges, I used the same spray adhesive method on the batting too to keep it from shifting over the years.

Once the adhesive dried, I laid the fabric over it. I prewashed, dried and ironed my fabric to get all the wrinkles out. Be sure to use a gentle or hand wash setting if you wash you fabric. It will fray a bit, but it shouldn't fall apart (if it does, it's not suitable for this project). At first, I tried just hammering in the upholstery nails straight along the edge of the foam, but this proved incredibly difficult and made a really crooked edge. 

So, after a little trial and error, I folded the fabric back over itself and 

stapled 1 3/4" of an inch from the edge of the board. 

The made a much cleaner line and made it way easier to get the upholstery nails into it. 

After I had all the straight edges down, I folded the fabric around the back and added a couple staples to hold the fabric back. I didn't staple it down completely because I hadn't yet finished the curved areas.

Next, I marked every 1/2 inch in a line about 1 1/2" from the edge of the board. 

I found it to be much easier to add the upholstery nails if a held the nail in place with needle nose pliers while hammering.

When I got to the curves, I folded the fabric back as shown below, but I didn't stapled the curved areas.

After all the nails were in, I finished stapling the fabric behind it and mounted it on my bed frame.

How to Make Your Own Stamped Wrapping Paper

This year, I wanted to make my gift wrapping special. I bought a big box of large rubber erasers and a roll of brown shipping paper from Office Depot. It took a bit longer than using store bought paper, but it's much more personal and a lot more fun to do. So, here's how to make your own pattern stamped wrapping paper!

Materials

Rubber Erasers

Exact-o Knife

Pencil

Stamp Pad

Paper

Start with a plain rubber eraser.

Draw or trace your design onto the eraser.

Cut around the edges of your design.

Try to keep your knife at an outward facing angle.

Angling it outward makes it easier to remove the unwanted areas and makes the design area stronger.

Carve out all the unwanted pieces and cut the stamp down to size.

Press the stamp into a stamp pad and stamp on paper!

Here are a couple of the designs I made. The snowflake was probably the hardest one to carve.

You can stamp it in a pattern (i.e. rows or offset rows) or just randomly.

How to make a Burlap, Lace and Muslin Wreath

This is the third grapevine wreath I have made so far. I really love these. They're so rustic, yet elegant once they've been decorated. This one made of burlap, muslin and lace is going to be my summer wreath.  These are not only beautiful, but they're rather cheap to make. The wreath cost about $5, the fabric was another $4, and the lace and pearls were scraps from other projects.

Materials:
Grapevine Wreath
Twine or Sisal Rope
1/2 yard Muslin
1/2 yard Burlap
1/2 yard Lace
Pearl Beads
Hot Glue Gun
Hot Glue Sticks
Scissors
Pins





Start by cutting the fabrics into strips about 1" wide, going in the direction of the shorter side of the fabric. You can vary the widths to vary the sizes of the flowers. Save a few inches at the end to make the leaves.

Start by making the muslin flowers, since it's easier and it will give you practice to be able to make the burlap ones. Grab one corner of the strip of fabric and pinch it with your finger and thumb.

Start winding it around the center twist it as you go.

Try to twist it once about every third of the way around the flower, increasing the number of twists as you move outward.

Once you finish a flower stick a pin through it to hold it together.

For the burlap flowers, do the same thing but twist it less often. For the burlap and lace flowers, hold the strip of lace on top of the burlap. As you twist it, try to keep the lace on the top of the burlap.

Once you're done twisting all the strips into flowers, heat up your glue gun and cut circles of muslin and burlap the size of your flowers. Add hot glue in the spiral of the flower on the bottom side to hold it all together.

Stick the circle on the bottom of the flower while the glue is hot.

Once they've cooled a little, remove the pin and add a drop of hot glue in to the end of the strip of fabric to hold it in place.

Arrange the flowers the way you want them on the wreath. At this point, you can cut out leaves from the burlap to mix in with the flowers.

I ended up wrapping twine around the area where I wanted my flowers to go so that they had more to hold on to.

Pickup each flower and add a spiral of hot glue around the back of it. Then put in in place and hold it very for a few seconds.

Glue the pearls into the center of the flowers. Try to match the sizes; larger pearls on larger flower, smaller pearls on smaller flowers. You can also do clusters of pearls if you wish.

Hang and enjoy!