Hidden In Plain Sight

Remember how I said we were not going to be homeschooling this next year?  I would just like to apologize for being a huge fibber.  We have made some huge changes in our family recently, and decided to steamroll ahead for one more year. (I'm going to be blogging about what we are doing differently, but hint hint it involves the TV.)

Ok so we homeschool in our regular living space.  I'm super selfish, and don't want to dedicate any one space as strictly homeschool.  Our house is much spacier than our last home, but not so spacey that I feel like I can dedicate a room to it.  So here at our house we homeschool in the kitchen.  If you have been hanging around for a while you will know that we have a ginormous (technical term) island that you can read about here.  It is roughly nine feet long by five feet wide.  It can easily seat 12, but I only have seating for 8.  It is one of my favorite things about this house.  It provides tons of space for my girls to spread out their school work, and get to working on it. (or cooking or anything else)

For all that I needed something to store all of our homeschool supplies, and there were plenty of them.  It also needed to look at home in my kitchen.  So I started scouring Craigslist for the perfect piece.  This one Señor Hotness had a demand for, however, I had to find a piece that didn't need to be worked on.  As you all can guess this was so hard for me to agree to because that meant I was going to have to find something that was full price that actually matched my idea of cool.  I was so happy to find something that I loved that looked good with the room, and didn't break the bank.  Thank you desperate movers!

Isn't it beautiful!  My appliances are black so the color was perfect, and the style matched that of my cabinets perfectly.

When we got this the glass was kind of a problem for me.  This piece was all about concealing its actual purpose.  Helping it blend into the background.  Then I had an idea.  It involved tissue paper, my DIY decoupage glue (that you can find here).  I wanted to frost the windows, but I didn't want it to be permanent.  So I was all about mocking the look.  While the front of this is paned the back side of the doors are just one solid piece of glass.  So my thought was that I could just paint decoupage on the backside of the doors where the glass is solid then place the tissue paper over it.  Word to the wise unless you are crazy awesome this WILL wrinkle.  I personally like the wrinkled look.  I used a full-sized sheet on there.  This had excess hanging all over the place.  When the decoupage fully dried I used a butter knife, and gently cute the edges and pulled off the excess.  Then I went over the entire thing with another layer of decoupage glue.  Warning, be careful.  Tissue paper is super fragile period, but its even more fragile when wet.  So this will be crazy easy to tear, but when you are all done it will come out looking like this.

I really like how it turned out, and it was beyond super duper easy to do.

This faux frosting also hid the fact that what is stored in this isn't cutsie dishes, but where I keep our extra curriculum packets, crayons, markers, scissors, counting blocks, etc.

This gives you a view of what we keep inside, and what the inside of the doors look like.

Now let me tell you about the bottom.  In the bottom we keep what I call our "school tubs".  The ladies all have individual containers that hold all the packets that we are currently working on.

The tubs are the perfect fit. 

In the drawers we keep books.

In the crate on the left we keep more books and magazines.

In the crate on the right we keep all of our extra spiral notebooks.

An just to throw everyone off.  We keep the cook books in the metal magazine holders in the middle.

In the end we have a piece that doesn't look out of place in the kitchen, but allows us to have a class room when we need it or a completely mundane kitchen when we want it.  Oh how I wish my entire house was this organized.

Linked up at: internationalbloggersassociation.com

I'm Sew Over Veneer

Once upon a time I bought a super junked out antique sewing table, and it had unparalleled potential (true story).  It did, however, have a higher than average amount of flaking veneer, but I loved the bones so much that I was willing to chance it.  That and the $15 price tag helped push it over the edge for me.

See?  Isn't it deceptively awesome?

With the top open.

Look at all that awesome detail. (You can't tell, but the finial looks like it might have been on the receiving end of some kitty angst.)  Now for the bad.

Look at all that chippy awesomeness. I have heard lots of talk of chippy pieces, but that is usually referring to the paint...not the furniture itself.  I'm not a fan.

Mmm...rippling veneer.  My favorite (extreme sarcasm).

On the back, part of this leg has been knocked clean off.

What the heck?!? Right before I painted I discovered that this wasn't the original back, but a weird piece of paneling put on this piece because it had peeling, you guessed it, VENEER!  Since I had already prepped the rest of it to paint I then had to back track to fix this. Ugh

Here is the paneling piece.  Peeps this isn't fit for a wall let alone furniture.  So just incase you all have ever contemplated using this for furniture...DON'T.  Just say NO!

Here is what it looked like underneath.

With just a little bit of elbow grease, and it was gone (man I wish it had all been this easy).

Ok, so I came across this piece on my most favorite place to waste time EVER...Craigslist.  I don't know who Craig is, but I love that guy for having such fun lists full of awesomeness.  Our house is almost 100% filled with Craigslist items.  Where else can you find desperate people selling nice things at a fraction of the cost because they are moving soon.  Desperate movers are my favorite victims sellers.

That being said I bought this from someone who cleans peoples places out, and then lists and sells their stuff.  Now that I say that it sounds like I bought this from a thief, but it was a guy that ran a totally legit operation (I hope).  I can tell you what most likely happened with this sucker.  Somebody's mother got sick, and went to the rest home, and they shoved her stuff in the barn.  Until they aged to such a point that they too were rest home bound at which time my craigslisting friend sold it to me.  Veneer and a non-climate controlled barn don't mix well.  So my first order of business was to remove the veneer.  Here is where buying junked out antiques is a bonus because under the veneer is solid wood.  Where as now it would be veneer over particle board grossness.  Old furniture is still solid wood its just an inferior wood under the nice veneer, which isn't even a problem with painted furniture.  

So I researched how to remove veneer.  Everywhere mentioned moisture, heat, and using a putty knife.  The pictures made it look like it was a simple matter of spritzing it, and then covering it with a cloth, ironing, and then it magically peels off with little to no effort.  Let me just say that there was nothing magical about it.

Here was my first go.  I put a damp dish towel on there with no other water used.

Then came the heat.  This method worked great on one side, but on the other...

it seemed to just re-adhere all the glue.  It was at this time that I was just sure that my sisters in bloglandia were lying.  I was railing against the unjustness of it when I had an epiphany.  My next go round I saturated a rag, and then basically just squeezed it out on the veneer.  Then placing my towel back over I hit it with the iron again.

Then slowly. but surely it started to come off.  It was totally a tedious process though, and I completely gave up at about...

this point.  Don't worry I sanded it smooth so you don't see when it is painted.

One bit of caution.  Next time I would plan to use several towels.  As the veneer was peeled off it left behind its adhesive that then soaked into the towel, and left my iron looking like this.

Which generally wouldn't be a bad thing since this is where it lives on a regular basis, but Señor Hotness bought this and told me not to use it for crafting...Oops.  I guess I just got myself a crafting iron.  By the way using the putty knife and a wet cloth I was able to get most of that off while it was still hot.  I'm not sure how successful that was ultimately though since I haven't used it on anything else.

Miss P was the biggest help of this whole process.  She took time out of her busy doll playing schedule to organize a veneer disposal assembly line.  I really wish I could share the picture I took of the assembly line, but Destructo girl still has a strong aversion to wearing anything other than panties below the waist.

I decided that this wouldn't be a spray painting project (because I feel like I am beholden to the weather to much for that).  So since I was going to paint this by hand I saw no reason to put off getting the top addressed. 

On the top I chose not to remove the veneer.  It was barely chipped.  I'll let you know if it comes back to bite me later.

Just another chipped area (and I'm not talking about my old pedicure)

Sorry I seem incapable of getting my feet OUT of the photos.

This is the pattern in my antique end tables that I was wanting the replicate with stain.

 To try and replicate the inlaid wood pattern that were on my antique end tables.  I was planning to use contrasting stains to accomplish this, but I wanted it to be super subtle. So instead of doing the gray and dark walnut like usual.  I went with Minwax Provincial and Minwax Dark Walnut.

My wide tape was too wide so I used my 1" tape and doubled it on the edges.

Here it is all taped out.

This is after the provincial was put on.

It bled, but after the dark walnut I didn't expect that to be noticeable.

Thick layer of Dark Walnut.  This was going to look awesome.

Or, wait...What? When I wiped off the dark walnut you couldn't see the pattern that I had taped out.

So I let everything dry for a day, and then I decided that I would just come back with my Rustoleum Gray Driftwood stain for a sharper contrast.

Lets hope this takes, and...

Here is what it looked like after I took the tape off.  Still with bleeding edges, but that should be fixed with the top layer of darker stain.

That didn't take either.  You can kind of see the pattern in this picture, but honestly it was almost indistinguishable in person.   

Then I realized that I didn't really like that pattern at all with just contrasting stains.  It worked on the tables because the wood was inlaid, and the grains running in different directions.  So then I decided to go in a different direction entirely.  I decided to sand it all down again, and start over.  And pray like mad that I didn't chip any of the veneered top further.

This time I decided to do a harlequin pattern, which is a fancy term for diamonds.  Of course I could have said I did and argile pattern, but I feel like then people would expect a golf themed table, and I can't even manage a simple putt putt without a fair amount of cheating.

It looks so very southwestern with the stain on it.

This is what it looked like after both the Driftwood, and Dark Walnut stains.  It is still very subtle, but I really love the harlequin pattern...a LOT.

Then it was time to address the bottom.  This piece was going to go in my formal living room with my bench and my blue coffee and end tables.  I decided that this needed to go blue like the other tables in the room.  The other blue furniture were painted in Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze that I had on hand in as spray paint.  I didn't want to spray paint this however.  I was wanting the brush paint it so you can imagine my excitement when I found this.

I found a quart of blue ocean breeze, and using plaster of paris I made chalk paint to paint the bottom of this.

I taped off the hinges that did absolutely no good.  I ended up having to paint them anyway.

Using a damp rag I washed down all the dusty intricate parts on the bottom.

Here it is with the paint still drying.  I didn't worry about the trim since I was planning on painting that black.

It looks really cool all painted out, but I won't lie it was a pain to make sure ever nook and cranny was covered in paint.

Ta DA!  Done painting.  Now on to the glazing.

This side is free of glaze.

What a difference glaze makes, right.  Before the color is too strong and very in your face smurfy blue.  After the addition of some antiquing in the form of brown glaze it softens up the colors considerably.

I generally dry brush it on, but for this piece I slathered it on there, and then came back and wiped off the excess.

Also be warned that glaze is very slow drying so if you aren't careful where you touch you might end up with something like this.  I didn't sweat the finger smudges since they will be covered up with the door accessories when they are reattached.

Then with all of that done it was time to reattach the drawer pulls.

On this piece I LOVED the aged patina these have so I did absolutely nothing to them.  Just pulled them out, and reattached them.

Don't they look awesome, and now they really pop and draw your eye as opposed to getting lost on the darkness of the piece.

Now you can hardly see the missing piece on the back, and the finial doesn't resemble something that had been used to alleviate cat scratch fever.

Here it is with the pretty new patterned top.

The top all opened up.

So beautiful!  I love the way this one turned out.

The over all cost of this project was $23 including the cost of the furniture, and the new can of blue paint.  Everything else was done with stuff I've used a ton, and had on hand.  This piece was the best candidate for getting painted because of its crumbling, chippy awful veneer problem.  Paint makes everything seem fresh and new.  All while covering the multitude of sins that could lie beneath.  This piece was finished off with a coat of polycrylic gloss on the bottom, and several coats on top.  Now instead of this being an eye sore in my room, it is now kind of a show stopper.  

Linked up at Daily Cup with Mrs. Olson, Miss Mustardseed, Shaken Together Life, Funky Junk Interiors, The-Chicken-Chic, The Dedicated House, We Call It Junkin, A Peek Into My Paradise, Savvy Southern Style, internationalbloggersassociation.com