A Tale of a Bureau

When I was growing up, I remember sharing a bedroom with my younger sister, Emily. At times, it was great, and then again, like all siblings sharing a bedroom, there were times that it was horrible. We argued like all siblings do, but when we got along, things were great. One of the coolest parts of sharing a bedroom was that our beds could be made into bunk beds, giving us so much room for activities (Can you name that movie? Don't worry, they were made to be bunk beds - we didn't have to nail them together!). The other thing that I remember about our bedroom growing up was a bureau, which I have recently learned was a part of the bunk bed set. When we moved when I was in middle school, the bureau moved with us to our new house, and I had it in my bedroom since we each had our own rooms at that point.

When I went to college, the bureau stayed in my old bedroom and I used it to store clothes I only wore during the summer and items I didn't bring to college. When Dylan and I moved in together my senior year, the bureau finally made it's way into our new apartment. It has since traveled with us to every place we have lived since then - Indiana included. And turns out, that's not the only traveling it has done. This bureau was in the house that my mom's side of the family owned in Newport, RI.

The family owned house in Newport was purchased in the late 1800s, and then during the 1920's, was used as a boarding house, run by a close friend of the family. This bedroom set was purchased for one of the bedrooms in the house. Once my grandmother was married in the 1950s, the house was returned to single-family home status, and my grandmother lived there with my grandfather, my uncle, and my mom. The bureau traveled with them when they moved from the house to New Jersey and Washington, D.C., and then back to the same house in Newport again. When my mom married, she took the bedroom set, and that is how I ended up with it.

Now, since the bureau was built sometime around the 1940's, it was scratched up and had a lot of marks on it from it's years of moving. With it being in my possession now, I wanted to refinish it. It was a reddish-brown color, and I wanted it darker, so using my random orbital sander, I took off all of the polyurethane and all the stain, bringing it down to it's beautiful maple hardwood. Because of the detail, I actually used my Dremel to sand some of the more difficult parts of the bureau.

Before staining the bureau, I actually contemplated making a slight modification to it. The detailed rounded pieces along the bottom of the bureau are not exactly the style that I am drawn to, and since they are just decorative pieces that frame out the bottom and hide the legs of the bureau, cutting away some of the wood wouldn't compromise the structure of the bureau. I measured out the squared shape that I wanted and had my Dremel saw ready to cut, but realized that not only was my blade not long enough to go through the wood, but I didn't really want to make it look different after hearing about it's history in the family. Even though it's not my style, I figured that keeping it's original skeleton was important in a piece with so much history.

Therefore, not making the cuts to the bureau led me straight into refinishing it. The raw wood was absolutely beautiful and in great shape, but to help it accept the new stain, I put on a coat of Minwax Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner and let it sit for fifteen minutes. It's funny too, because the color of the wood with the conditioner on it was just slightly lighter than the original color. I wish I had a better before photo, but the one I took was super blurry and I don't have my picture backup drive unpacked yet.

I wiped the excess off and then applied my first coat of Minwax Jacobean stain. You can see that the last coat of poly on the top was so shiny that it was reflecting the drop ceiling grid onto the surface! Aside from that though, this bureau looks absolutely beautiful now!

Two coats of stain, and three coats of polyurethane later, and the bureau was finished! Dylan helped me put it in the guest bedroom this morning, and it's the first piece of furniture in the room! I'm so excited to finally get the house put together, and I'm so excited that this piece of family history has a new place and a new look. I really love the dark tones of the wood and even though Dylan and I just spent hours painting the moulding in this room white, I think I like the way it stands out against the white beadboard and trim.

I just need to find some cool hardware for the drawers and then it's all set. Oh, and it will need a lamp and some books too, just to finish it off.

I've got a few more pieces to refinish, which should take me a about a week each, since I don't have a lot of time after work to get these projects done, and then we'll be at the point where we can actually look like we live in this house!

Have you been refinishing furniture lately? What's your favorite stain color?

Sanding Indoors Makes a Mess

Whoa there, it's been a while, huh? I've kind of fallen off the wagon with blogging, and more specifically, Flash Sale Friday, because things have been so much busier than normal and I just haven't had the time! I'm really hoping to jump back on, so look for one at the end of the week!

In the meantime, I've been up to a lot. I have started to refinish some of the furniture for the house, and am still constantly looking for other pieces to add to our decor. I knew that I was taking a risk in sanding down the furniture in the basement, but it's just been too cold outside to do this in the garage or the driveway.

What I didn't realize was that even though my random orbital sander has a dust bag attached that it wouldn't catch everything. So, my basement ended up covered in a sheet of sawdust. And I'm talking like 1/8" of sawdust, everywhere, including on the top of the laundry detergent bottles and covering the hot water tank. Everywhere.

Prior to this, I was using our house vacuum to clean things up because they weren't that messy, but I just didn't think that my house vacuum would like that dust all that much, so I bought a Wet/Dry Vacuum, and boy am I glad that I did. The basement was a mess, and this thing worked soooo well, thankfully.

And now that the basement is clean again, I've started to actually paint and stain the furniture. It's a lengthy process, especially when I only have time to work on the projects when I get home from work.

All set up for painting, this is the two-piece hutch that will be going in the craft room. Along the right side of the picture you can start to see the drawers of the bureau, which will be refinished for the guest bedroom.  Once these two pieces are done, I'll start on my favorite item - the card catalog! One thing I have learned from this process is that I will be making a sanding station in the basement, cordoned off with some drop cloths, that way the entire basement doesn't end up in another layer of dust!

Live and learn, right?

What have you been up to recently? Any plans to refinish furniture?

Cute Little Endtable

A long, long time ago, last year, actually, after I revealed the Family Room Design plan, I ended up taking a trip to Target, where I found that the little side table that I wanted was marked on Clearance and was going to be discontinued.  I snatched it up and brought it home with me, and then it sat in a closet for 8 months.

A few weeks ago, I took it out and brought it into the garage to be painted yellow.  Because the finish on the table was so shiny, I decided to rough it up a little bit first, using some medium grit sandpaper, and going over all of the sides and the top.  

I decided to go with a spray paint for a more even coverage. In addition, trying to paint this side table with a brush would have been difficult considering all of the cut outs in the metal.  I likely would have ended up with drip marks all over the place.  Also, since I really liked the shine that it had before I sanded it down, I decided to go with a glossy spray paint, so I picked up some bright yellow paint from the hardware store.  I'm glad I went with a primary yellow for the room, because finding the right shade of yellow would have been difficult for spray paint.   

Starting with the top of the table, I began spraying it yellow, making sure that I was at least a foot away from the table and moving the spray can in even widths and speed across the top.  

After the top was sprayed, I moved onto the sides, going in a horizontal back-and-forth pattern down the side of the table, and then rotating the yard waste bag that I put the table on so I could get to the other parts of the table.  

I ended up putting three coats of yellow spray paint on the table, just to make sure that I ended up with the most amount of coverage, and to get the yellow color to really pop.  Be careful with your spray paint though...

Because I was working in my garage only a few weeks ago, the temperature was much colder than suggested by the spray paint can directions. I ignored these though, and used it anyways. The spray paint was fine though, because it was being stored inside the house.  The problem ended up being the table - it is made of metal and was being stored outside in the garage, where the day's high temperature was somewhere around 20 degrees, the metal was so cold that as soon as the spray paint hit it, it was wrinkling and almost shriveling up.  

As you can see above, this is what I ended up with in different places on the table. And surprisingly, I am ok with it. I think it makes it a little cooler, actually.  Plus, it's not really noticeable unless you are pressing your nose up against the end table, which I highly doubt anyone will be doing at my house.  Unless, of course, they read this post and actually want to see the crackling for themselves!

Anyways, once I had the three coats of spray paint on my table and let them dry, it was ready to be placed in the family room.  Originally, the table was going to be on the purple shag rug that I bought for the space, but it turns out that an 8'x10' rug in that room is SO much smaller than I thought. So, the table is going to end up off the rug, but still on the side of the couch.  With the bottom of the table being metal, I was afraid of it scratching the hardwood floors, so I came up with a way to protect both the table and the floors - silicone!

I took out my trusty caulk gun, and my ever-so-popular tube of silicone, and spread a generous amount around the bottom of the table, making sure that I didn't go too far to one side or the other.  

Once the silicone was on the rim of the table, I used a few toothpicks just to make sure that it was even in terms of height and that there weren't any spots that I missed.  Also, since I overlapped the starting and ending point, that needed to be smoothed out a bit so that it was even with the rest of the rim.  

I let the silicone sit and dry for 24 hours, although it probably wasn't necessary to wait that long.  You can check your tube of silicone for the actual recommended drying time if you're impatient.  

Once the silicone was dry, I flipped over the table, set it on my hardwood floors, and voila! I had a great pop of color for my family room, and one of the best parts is that the silicone is protecting the floors from scratching, and from sliding around, since curious kitty cats like to explore all the new things that are popping up in our home!

It's amazing how much life the yellow brings to the space compared to the white!  Have you ever revamped a little side table for your space? Would you ever consider using primary yellow in your home decor?

Gigantor Chair

Just about two weeks ago now, we had our couch and oversized chair delivered to our home, during the beginning of a snowstorm.  We had received a gift card from my parents and sister for Christmas to Bob's Discount Furniture, a local to New England furniture store that has some pretty great pieces at a really really lost cost.  While their pieces may not last forever (and that's just an assumption...we've had no experience with them before until now), they fit the budget that we wanted to spend while at the same time having the colors and styles we were looking for.

I had done my research on their products online, and then went into the store back in early October to talk with someone about pricing and the additional features.  While I was there, I got a printed quote that we could bring back into the store when we were ready to order, which we did on December 29th.  One of the greatest parts about Bob's is that their furniture is not made to order - it's all stored in a warehouse, which meant that even though we placed the order on Sunday, we would have our furniture on Thursday morning.  Crazy fast, right?

So that's just what we did. We signed up for the "Breakfast with Bob's" early morning delivery, which was a delivery window of 6:30am-9:30am, that way neither of us would end up needing to take a full day off of work for delivery.  They arrived a little later than their online tracking system stated, but that was because the snow fall was adding some time onto their commute, and I didn't mind really, especially since they still arrived well within their given time window.

The two guys brought the couch, the chair, and the ottoman into the house, unwrapped them, put on the legs, and took all of the packing products with them, which was perfect!  And within a half hour of them arriving at the house, they were gone and we had furniture!  But, the arrangement didn't quite go as expected.  Turns out that the oversized chair that we purchased is in fact really oversized - 53" across!  In fact, too oversized for where we wanted to put it.

The original plan was to put both the couch and the chair against the purple wall, but because of the angled wall and the gray wall jut-out that you see in the picture below, the two just didn't fit right against the wall together, even though I measured how they would fit. The chair ended up overlapping onto the tile floor of the kitchen and it really just didn't look right, and was quite crowded.  So, we left the couch up against the purple wall, and put the chair in the corner next to where the television is.  And this is what we are going to work with now.

I'm hoping that it's not going to be too crowded over on that wall, with the TV stand and the bookshelf there. But, you'll see soon how things have ended up over the last few weeks, since we have started adding in all of the other layers to the room.  

Have you ever ordered furniture expecting it to go somewhere specific and then realized it just doesn't work the way you wanted it to? What have you done to overcome this issue, and how did you resolve it?

DIY: Expedit Hack - Wide Cubby and Legs

One of the things that I like the most about IKEA furniture is that not only does it have clean modern lines and awesome colors, but they all have the potential to be hacked!  There is an entire website dedicated to hacking IKEA furniture, and I'm no stranger to hacking, myself, as you'll remember my Orgel lamps that I hacked to add fabric shades.

Ever since I began designing the Family Room, I knew that I wanted the IKEA Expedit as the TV stand. The fact that it had all of these little cubbies to put our DVDs and video game consoles was perfect. However, the cubbies aren't exactly wide enough for a DVD player, and likely not wide enough for your Cable or Satellite box either, as those are typically around 15" and the cubbies are about 13".  To solve this, we decided to hack the unit, which didn't require any power tools or saws, which for Dylan, meant that it was perfect!

We followed the normal directions on setting up the Expedit unit, by attaching one of the long sides to one of the short sides first.  We put on the first short shelf, then the first long shelf, and then this is the point where we made some changes.

Instead of doing another short shelf and then a long shelf, we did the opposite - a long shelf and then a short shelf.  And yes, I know that sounds confusing, so I made you a diagram.

The black thick lines are the outside borders of the Expedit.  The small red lines are the small shelf dividers, and the long green lines are the long shelf dividers.  The layout on the left is how the Expedit is supposed to look, according to IKEA, and the layout on the right is what we did to make it fit our needs.

It's a little easier to see how we made the change now. Instead of putting a short board underneath the top long horizontal board, we put another long board, this time going vertically.  And then to the right of that long vertical board, we attached a small board, horizontally.  Because all of the pieces are essentially identical in the way they are put together, we didn't have to make any new holes for the dowel pegs to go through.  We did, however, have to make 4 of the wooden dowel pegs shorter.  The long boards (the green ones) have holes that go through completely so that they can attach to both of the short boards (the red ones) that meet up with it. Because of this, and the fact that we are using one of the long boards "improperly", we had to cut about 3/8" off from 4 of the pegs so that they didn't stick up through the long board and into the space we want the Cable box to go.  Not a big deal though - it was really easy. In fact, you don't even need a hack saw, although that would work really well.  We ended up using a large pair of wire cutters and it was perfect, although I bet you could get away with kitchen shears, pruning shears, and possibly even a flat-head screwdriver and a hammer, like you would use a chisel.

So, once you have your boards the way you want them, you can finish putting together the frame of the Expedit, securing everything together just like the IKEA directions say to.  Don't be concerned if you end up with extra boards. We ended up with an extra short board, which is a good thing, because I may or may not have accidentally chipped off an edge of the high-gloss finish...

After you have rearranged our boards, you may declare yourself done with this project, but we still had one more small hack to complete - attaching legs.  Since our unit will be placed on the long side, in order to hold our TV, we wanted it up off the floor so that the heat from our radiators could pass underneath it, and also for easier cleaning and so that the long side of the Expedit doesn't get too scratched when it's moved.  So, enter the IKEA Capita legs.  We originally got the 8" legs, but after getting the Expedit set up, we realized that adding 8" more to it's height would make the TV too high, so we exchanged them for the 4" ones.  They also have 6" ones available if you're interested.  

Anyways, I wasn't too logistical about placing the legs on the bottom, so I lined up the legs with the corners of the unit, and then pushed them inward about 1.5" so the screws didn't interfere with the assembly of the unit at the corners. The last thing I want is the piece to fall apart with the TV on it, right!

First off, make sure that if you hacked the shelf arrangement, that you are putting the legs on the side you want down.  You really don't want to go through these next steps just to realize that you put the legs on the top instead of the bottom!  So to attach the Capita legs, I just used one of the screws that came with the legs, and made a small indentation on the surface of the Expedit in where each screw will go, using the hardware as a guide.  

Using my drill, although a screwdriver would work fine too, I then attached the legs to the Expedit using the screws that were in the unit package.  I did not pre-drill the holes, as the interior of the Expedit structure is not solid wood, so they went in very easily.  

Depending on the weight of your television, you may want to add a leg or two to the middle of your unit. Our TV only weighs 50 pounds, but I just wanted to be extra careful, especially since we technically removed one of the weight-bearing shelf dividers from the unit.  

Once you have your legs attached, you can flip your piece over, set it in place, and then place your TV on top!  Our Cable box now fits in the top cubby, and when we bring the DVD player downstairs, it will be placed right under the Cable box.  

I think this looks great, and I can't wait to fix those cables back there so they don't show. And I have another neat little project planned for the Expedit - yes it is another hack. And I can't wait to get started on that project and show it to you!

Have you ever hacked an IKEA product? What did you do and how did you do it?

Dining Room Chairs and Swatches

Rugs have been pushed aside, ladies and gentlemen - and been replaced by Craigslist.  I hinted towards this last week, however, it has gotten much, much worse in the last few days.  It has come to a point where I now have over 45 alerts set for different search terms, and in addition to that, I have nine different Craigslist search tabs open on my Chrome browser.  I have been stalking that site at least once per hour, and have been finding some amazing things.

This weekend, Dylan and I went to visit my grandparents, and on our way down, stopped to take a look at some chairs, which we ended up buying.  These two chairs, the IKEA Borje chairs, are on my shopping list for our dining room, so I was so excited to see that these were the color that I wanted.

The seller said that they had only been used two or three times, and they are in excellent condition, so I totally believe her.  We bought them for $40 combined, tucked them away in the backseat of my car, and left her home with a smile on our faces! I mean, how can you not smile after getting such perfect chairs at a great price?! Each chair new from IKEA is $49, so getting two for less than the price of one was incredible!!

So, getting these chairs brings me to the next part of the plan - recovering the seats. I mentioned last week when I talked about the Klobo Loveseat that I wanted to recover both in a patterned fabric so that it ties the living and dining areas in together.  However, I was kind of worried that some of the patterns of fabric would clash and be too busy with the pattern on the rug - and boy was I right.  I didn't realize how busy some of those swatches ended up being, so I am very glad that I ordered them.

I laid all of the swatches out on the Klobo Loveseat, which is already in the living/dining room so using the natural light from the large picture window in that space, I was immediately able to eliminate some of the fabrics because they weren't the right color I was looking for.  You can kind of see the difference in the color of the fabrics compared to the paint swatch, which is the one that I have bordered in black, but trust me when I say that some of the colors that look like they match in this picture were totally off, like the one right above the paint swatch. Wow, was that an awful clash!

On the Arms: Premier Prints Small Dandelion Turquoise/White and Premier Prints Circles True Turquoise (Discontinued) 

On the Seat Back - Top Row: Premier Prints Solid Turquoise, Premier Prints Cameron Slub Aquarius, Richloom Sensu Mallard Teal

On the Seat Back - Bottom Row: Premier Prints Indoor/Outdoor Sticks Pacific

On the Seat - Top Row: Premier Prints Linked Jade, Premier Prints Indoor/Outdoor Towers Pacific, Premier Prints Jiri Stripe Jade, Premier Prints Linked Macon Apache Blue

On the Seat - Bottom Row: Premier Prints Lulu Stripe True Turquoise, Covington Majestic Velour Peacock, Premier Prints Dandelion White/True Turquoise, Premier Prints Nicole Slub Aquarius, Premier Prints Canopy Stripe Slub Aquarius

I wasn't able to test these out with the rug that I bought, because I actually exchanged the 8'x10' for the 9'x12', and haven't removed the new one from the packaging.  As you can see, there is just too much stuff in the room right now to be able to open it up, so I used my iPad to show the rug pattern with the fabric.  Turns out that the rug is a lot busier than I thought it would be, so we have actually decided to do two different fabrics.  And surprisingly, even though we chose a pattern and a solid, we will be using the pattern on the seats of the chairs!  

I love the chevron pattern above, and even though Dylan is not a big fan, he said he could deal with it in small quantities. Plus, this Premier Prints fabric isn't in-your-face chevron, like some of the other ones are, so I think that worked in my favor with getting him to agree to it!  The second fabric swatch is to die for. Seriously.  It's a turquoise velour, made by Covington, and it is the softest fabric I have ever felt. It's even softer than the Minky fabric that is so popular for baby blankets.  As soon as I touched this fabric, I wanted to lay on it, and knew that I had to have it.  Luckily for me, the color in the velour and the chevron is almost exactly the same, so Dylan suggested that we do the print on the chairs, since the angle in the chevron pattern matches slightly with the rug, and then we use the velour on the Klobo Loveseat.

Sold!

So, that's the plan. I have purchased the fabric and I am waiting for it to arrive.  I can't wait to get to work in recovering the chairs and the loveseat - and don't worry, I'll be posting a DIY so that you too can recover your IKEA furniture!

Have you ever recovered a piece of IKEA furniture? What problems did you come across in your process?  

The Epic IKEA Shopping List

I told you earlier this week that I was going to be taking an epic trip to IKEA to purchase some furniture and accessories for our house.  I have been making a spreadsheet of all the purchases we will be needing to make in the next few months, and for each room, there is at least one thing from IKEA.  I figured that I would give you a tour of all of the things that I have on my IKEA shopping list, and how they will be used in our home.  

Our first stop is the Family Room, which I know I have already explained most of it to you, but just for the sake of keeping everything together in one place, I will include here again.

So, as far as the IKEA items go, from this room, you'll see the most obvious piece, the Expedit, which will be our TV stand.  I will be getting it in the High-Gloss White color, and I will be hacking it to add four or five Capita Legs so that it sits just a little higher up off the floor.

The next piece you see in the design plan above is the coffee table, which is part of the Vittsjo Nesting Tables Set. I haven't decided what I will use the taller table for yet, but that can always go in a different room if it turns out there isn't enough space in this room.  Also part of the same collection is the Vittsjo Tall Shelving Unit, which actually isn't pictured above in the design plan, but it will go next to the television and the Expedit.  

And what you may not have noticed in the background of the design plan are the white Merete curtains for the windows.  I love that they are grommet curtains that I can use with the DIY curtain rods I have made out of electrical conduit.  

The Family Room design plan shows two lamps, one table and one floor, but those have since been removed from the actual plan - I just didn't update the visual I made in Photoshop.  

The next room is the small bedroom, which will be my Craft Room. I haven't previously shared my design plan for this room, so this will be the first chance you get to seeing how I am hoping it will turn out. I will make a full design plan though, because there are some other really cool items that I will be adding to the space, including my new library card catalog!

The first thing for the space is the Morum rug. It's a flat-weave rug that I am thinking will vacuum really well, which is important since there will be fabric scraps and thread clippings likely falling onto the floor.  

The next thing that I will be getting for this room will be opposite of the rug - the Fuga ceiling light. Currently, the space has one of those old globe lights that has probably been in place since the house was built, so I am really looking forward to switching this light out. I think it's the perfect mix of modern with functional, since the spotlights can be pointed wherever they are needed. 

Dylan and I used to have one of these Linnmon/Adils tables in the last apartment we had together, and it held up really well considering we were using it for food prep. So I put two of these tables on my shopping list, hoping that I am able to put them together in the center of the room to give me enough space to spread out large pieces of fabric.  

A while back, I shared the design plan for the Guest Bedroom, but like the Family Room, I wanted to include the IKEA items in this post.  There aren't too many for this room, because I have since removed the two nightstands and all the lamps in the room, and I already have the bureau, and the IKEA chair has been replaced by one that belonged to my grandmother before she passed away earlier this year.  

So, that only leaves us with two items from IKEA for this space: the Hampen Rug and the Werna Curtains.  I really love the green rug and hope that despite its small size, it will really help to bring some comfort into the space without overloading the room on the green color.  The curtains though, are dark, so I'm hoping that they will help to block the light when we have guests staying over, while at the same time, bringing some dimension to the room with that pop of dark color along the wall.  

The Living/Dining Room doesn't have a full design plan at this point.  I've been really struggling with it, since we have two functions planned - a Dining Room and a Living Room.  I have been debating building our table, but I'm not sure if that cost will be worth it in the end. I have to price out some wood from a lumber yard, because the types offered from the hardware stores are too soft to build a sturdy table.  If I don't end up building the table as planned, I will likely be purchasing the Stornas table from IKEA, which is made of solid wood.  To go along with the table, regardless of if it's built or bought, I will be purchasing ten of the Borje chairs in the Brown finish and the Gobo White seats.

I also thought that some white Lack shelves would look good along one of the walls to show off some of the little chotchkies that we have.  And then on the other side of the table, I was thinking of some sort of sideboard, and I have fallen in love with The IKEA Bjursta Sideboard.  However, I am having a really hard time justifying the price tag, especially since this isn't one of IKEA's solid wood pieces.

There is only one piece for the Master Bedroom that we will be purchasing, and that is this Expedit Workstation so that we can setup our office in our bedroom. With it being as big as it is, we will have more than enough space to set up an office area, especially since the futon currently in our bedroom will be moving to the craft room for additional guest sleeping when necessary.  

Aside from these bigger items, we will be purchasing some decor items, like picture frames for my favorite digital art prints, vases, and fake flowers, and some succulents and actual plants and the cute little tabletop Socker greenhouse you see below.  The venue that we got married at, the Roger Williams Botanical Center, has a few of these plants in the greenhouses, so I thought that this would be the perfect way to remind us of the absolutely beautiful wedding day that we had.  

So, that concludes the bulk of my IKEA shopping list. To make sure that I don't bore you, I didn't include too many of the little things that we will be getting, like some additional accessories for my craft room and some sets of sheets for the guest bedroom and the futon.

But, that's my list! What do you think? What are your favorite pieces above? What about the pieces you have in your home - which are your favorites? Any suggestions on must-have items from IKEA?

All images except the Family Room and Guest Bedroom Design Plans courtesy of IKEA.