Handmade Dining Table

So the banquette is not done yet, but we needed a dining table for it.  Shopping on Craigslist is always a good thing, but finding the right size dining table just wasn't in the cards.  So I decided to make one.

The search was on for the right base.  Enter a Craigslist find for that...an antique Singer sewing machine base for $50.

So what to make the table out of.  I knew I needed something about 30 inches wide and 5 feet long and strong enough to withstand someone leaning on it without curving or bending over time.  Off to Stardust to find a solid core door.  I cut the door down to 60".  (lesson 1: I recommend 59 to 59.5" to accommodate the trim molding)

 

I centered the sewing machine base upside down on the door and marked and drilled holes to match those on the base.  In addition I drilled a 3/4" "sink" hole about 3/8' deep so that the mounting bolts would be flush with the door, then bolted the door to the base.

Next step...adding the re-purposed siding I picked up from a friend.  They were tearing down an old shed on their property and offered with wonderful chippy wood to anyone who wanted to pick it up.

 Because it was siding it was thicker on one side.  In glued and nailed small molding strips to the door so I could mount the thinner end of the siding and have level slats.

I glued and used black drywall screws to mount the siding to the door.  The screws served double duty because they also filled the holes for the old nails.  I centered the boards on the door to used the best part of the chippy wood.  When dry, I trimmed them down with a hand saw to the size of the door.

The last building step was to trim the door with casement molding that I painted white then distressed with the crackle medium and brown/black paint.

Here is why I recommend making the table slightly less than 60".  The glass topper was a little more expenses because the glass company had to order a larger size piece of glass to create at 60 3/4" x 32 3/4" piece.  Using a 60" piece would have been less expenses.  The glass made a huge different and I don't have to worry about any of the old paint chipping off during use.

A unique piece.  Since completing this project I have purchased an additional sewing machine base for another re-purposing adventure.  Have any suggestions??

My Useless Cabinet

I thought people were smaller in the 1950's.  To walk through some of the homes in my neighborhood you would think the same.  I mean, really, the house across the street has a Master Bath the size of a travel trailer.  My husband can't even get inside the shower stall.

So why was this cabinet in my kitchen so high?  Most of the top shelves in the rest of my cabinets hold all the stuff I only pull out once a year, like Christmas dishes.  This one above my sink was useless.  Who is going to use a cabinet that you have to have a ladder to reach and you have to hold the door up with one hand while to try to search for what you need with the other.

So a decorative shelf was born in my 1954 kitchen.  But a plain white shelf in my plain white cabinets was...well...boring.  For something a little different I lined the shelf with fabric.  I little spray glue did the trick.  (Hint: don't use striped fabric.  It's much harder to make it look good.)  I used hot glue and a little bit of black lace trim to cover all the corner seems.  Voile'.

P.S.  Everything on this shelf was found at a thrift store.  The bird was a cheap tacky resin figurine that I gave knew life.  See the post on that here.  The decorative "carving" on the face of the shelf was made using a stencil and spackling paste.

Don't let that hard to reach cabinet sit empty.  Have photos of your shelf project?  Share them on my Facebook page.

More Tacky Art Reborn

Ah, the 50's & 60's.  The era of cheap, tacky, green art.  Once again I found the perfect item to raise from the dead.  It's your grandma's art.  You know that stuff that you remember hanging on her wall from the time you were knee high to a pigs ear...or something like that.  After grandma passed on it was the first thing to end up in the "estate" sale pile. 

I love that word.  "Estate" sale, "Estate" sale.  Like saying it somehow makes all the really old plastic furniture worth a little more.  But, as usual, I digress.  If there were an ugly art contest, like those ever-so-sweet ugly pet competitions, this would win, hands down. 

The purchase had to be mulled over.  After all, what in the world was I going to do with this?  There was only one reason I couldn't pass it up.  It was a perfect match to one of the images on my recently purchased toile fabric for my kitchen.  And where there is one tacky piece of perfect art, there is always it's mate, and they both came home with me.

They sat in a drawer in my craft room for about 6 months and I decided to take them apart the other day to hopefully inspire my creative juices.  It worked!  And glory be!  All the other owners of tacky art would have taken their mildly hideous pieces home from the competition the minute I walked in with these ugly mutts.  What I found inside was a cheap piece of molded silver plastic so flimsy I could cut it with a pair of scissors.  So I did.

I trimmed the corners, just in case I find a use for the small corner border pieces then cut around the center frame with a ruler and my utility knife.  Did I say "thin piece of molded plastic" because it was a piece of cake to cut.  Each piece of art got a good coat of cream colored spray paint to cover up all the green.  After mere minutes in the Arizona sun these babies were ready for a coat of spray glue on the back and voile'.

I glued them to the inside cabinet on either side of my kitchen sink, let the spray glue dry overnight, then used paintable kitchen caulk around the edge of each picture to ensure the look of a cohesive piece.  When dry, I simple brushed a light coat of the same cabinet paint to give each piece a hint of wood grain. 

A completely new life has been created and I will challenge anyone (who hasn't read this little blurg) to suspect the humble beginnings of these beautiful, custom carvings.

If it weren't for grandma's in the 50's we would actually have to pay real money for real stuff like this.  Thank you grandma. 

Cheap Art Made Into Something Special

You know the stuff I'm talking about.  The Big Lots, K-mart, Walmart art that you bought for your first apartment.  Yes, the kind of art where the frame is worth more than the picture and that's not saying much.

I found such a piece at Goodwill a while back and while the art had no appeal to me I really liked the mat with the coordinating inner frame.  At the time, my brain was seriously lacking in ideas for this masterpiece and my sanity was a little in doubt as well.  But it all became clear after I returned home from my son's Army Basic Training graduation.

After 10 weeks of absence my first thought upon seeing him was "man, this must agree with you because you look great!"  I was trying to remember when I had ever seen him so happy.  During our visit I managed to snagged one really good photo that clearly emphasized this, and when I returned home I knew it needed a little something different.

My list of ingredients?   A camouflage bandanna, some little wooden stars, a small American flag, string, jewelry wire, scrapbook card stock, an antique angel button, a US ARMY die cut and some customized dog tags I ordered off of eBay.

The Angel button accents Psalm 91: 10-11 printed on card stock and framed is a coordinating decorator fabric that I fringed by pulling out some of the weave.  I made the barbed wire out of gold heavy gauge jewelry that I "dusted" with black spray paint.  The flag, string and die cut were too tidy so I aged them with Distress Ink.

So if you combine this little piece, with all the stickers and magnets on the back of my car, and my t-shirts I think I clearly qualify as going overboard on the Army mom thing.

Pvt G. Sean H., U.S.Army Medical Corps

I'm so very proud of you.

The Charm Springs Forth

You know all those new houses in those new neighborhoods where all the roofs are the same?  They're all painted the same color and your this close to your neighbor.  We used to live in a neighborhood like that.  The one my brother and sister-in-law lived in was so clone-ish that we would often have trouble finding their house.  That 2 story number that was built behind them finally solved that problem for us, but I don't think they liked the idea that their neighbors could see everything they were doing in their tiny back yard.



The "before"...



I've always loved older houses because they have so much charm.  The Bee Hive had hidden charm from day one.  Our first encounter with our "estate" was a view in the windows that did not reveal the great bones of this place.  We were actually looking at the property across the street and saw a for sale sign in the window.  After making offers on three different houses on that same street before we finally got a home here, and the more homes I see in our 55 plus year old neighborhood the more I realize we really do have a little gem of a house.  I think we ended up with the best of the three we bid on.



and the "after".



So now our new roof is complete and the charm is eye-catching.  I love to sit on the front porch (I think I have porch sores on my behind from being bored there a lot during my recovery) and I notice the drivers and pedestrians turn to look at our place as they go by.  The bright red door is turning even more heads.  Soon the grass will be bright green with the summer irrigation and there is talk of a new fence and improved gate with our neighbors.  Our next step out front...taking out the poor ficus tree that sucummed to severe frost.  You know how harsh the Arizona winters are...whimpy tree.

Friday's are "Wear Red to Support Our Military" days.  We've decided to just go red everyday with our front door and draped our son's Army flag in the window in support of his decision to serve our country.

Before he flew off to basic training, my son and I installed these shutters that I found at Stardust for $4 a piece (see the previous post) and the iron sconces were a 50 cent find at a garage sale.  And we had pretty red candles in the sconces but this is Arizona and they had taken on a graceful curviture before plopping to the patio .  A few more fake candles have been ordered for the summer months.

I just need a few plants for my pots, a new light fixture because I broke the one that was here when we moved in (I was having trouble with Christmas lights.  I still don't know how I broke it), and maybe a porch swing.  Walking up under the shade of our 50 plus year old Laurel tree is already a comforting experience.  A few more special touches and it will be and "oooo, how cute" moment for all of our visitors.

Heres to all of the charming days ahead.



Time To Recover and Re-roof.

Sometimes things are made right but after use and time parts wear out and repairs must be made.  Then again, sometimes things are just done completely wrong from the start and you put up with the stares and the laughs and the embarassment until you just can't take it any more.

The first is me.  I was wonderful and beautifully made by God.  But with time and use some of my parts have expended themselves beyond the point of usefullness.  Recently, my not really needed parts also came under fire from themselves.  As a result...a pretty major surgery, 4 days in the hospital and an extensive recovery at home.  Yes, it was the big "H", and even though I was told how long it would take to recover I knew I was stronger and it wouldn't be nearly that long.  Yeah, right!

The second is our roof.  As a teenager I assisted my parents and siblings in re-roofing the ole' homestead with a new layer of shingles.  Dad handed us a hammer and some nails and showed us how to roof a house.  I'm ashamed to admit that we have lived in this house 2 years and I had never seen the roof until we had wind damage from a recent storm and we were getting an assessment from our friendly neighborhood roofer.

You have got to be KIDDING!  Who in the world put this roof on?!

So.  As I sit here recuperating I get to observe and catalog a few exterior improvements that will make a huge improvement to the integrity and appearance of the house.

The next big project, calling the local water company to tell them what idiots they are because they suggest we neighbors get together and pay someone to come out and fix their broken irrigation system.  You have got to be KIDDING!  What numb-skulls are running the water comany?!

A Soft New Look - Recycled Kitchen Project

Finally!  It's seems to have taken forever but I have actually made some progress to the point where I feel like I can share it with you.  My new pantry.  Well, maybe and maybe not.  I haven't decided yet if I will distress the cabinets or not.  If you read my earlier blog you have seen this ugly cabinet.  We did make one attempt at improving these 57 year old cabinets after we moved in.   But we were rushed and never really did like the outcome.  Primer, brown paint and hew hinges were as far as we went.
 

With a little bit if ingenuity, some glue, recycled faux wood blinds, clamps, black spray paint and a new white finish...voile!

This is the same cabinet, same doors, same hardware.  I found some used 2" textured faux wood blinds and Stardust and framed the cabinet doors.  Window blinds have small holes to accommodate the pull strings so I had to come up with some way to hide these holes. 

I filled the holes with spackling paste then used a stencil and more spackling paste to create a Fleur de lis embossed treatment over the holes.  Those ugly chrome handles...a coat of spray primer and matte finish black paint gave me a more desirable piece of hardware.  Forget spending $3-$5 on new handles.  I spent that much on a can of primer and a can of paint and I'll be able to re-do all 35 kitchen handles and 3 bathroom handles.

The white looks so much bolder and yet somehow softer against the tan paint.

Redecorating can be done very affordably if one is will to think creatively and take the time to measure, cut, glue and paint, paint, paint.