Antique Phone Table

After a long day of crafting on Saturday, you'd think I would have had enough? Nah.

So while I was creepin' through Craigslist on Saturday, I had come across this gem:

Wait. I NEED this table.  I simultaneously emailed and called this "Dan".  I salivated at the thought of this untapped potential.  I dreamed of this table while doing my Boston table.  

At about 8 o'clock, my prayers were answered.  I got an email.  Table was available! I obviously emailed him IMMEDIATELY saying I could come get it, say, NOW.  Where else would a 26 year old gal about town be on a Saturday night? Oh right. At home re-doing furniture. I'm cool.

Dan did not share my sense of urgency. I had to wait until this morning.  

After getting the goods (Dan was a cool guy... lives across the street from my aunt and uncle!) I decided to forego my original plan of using scrap fabric that I already owned and go to Jo-Ann fabrics and see what I could scrounge...

THANK GOD I DID.  I found this glorious fabric:

Win #1: It was on sale for 40% off. Win #2: It was a scrap piece so I got an additional 50% off. Win #3: A woman in the checkout line game me a coupon for 20% off.  After all was said and done, I got a yard of $12 fabric for $2.50. BOOOYAH.

THE PLAN:

-paint table white

-paint shelf green (same green as my living room walls!)

-reupholster the chair

This was super easy! There were a lot of tricky parts but overall it was a very standard re-paint and re-upholster situation.

After letting the paint dry, all I had to do was screw the seat back on! And WAHHLAHH:

I am kind of obsessed with this.  The tentative plan is to sell this one too but I really do love it! 

What it cost:

-table - $30

-fabric - $2.50

-brushes - $2

TOTAL: $34.50

What I learned:

-Dan has a whole barn full of stuff. Note to self: call him when Craigslist inventory is low!

-My white paint needs replacing.  It was pretty thick.

Hope you enjoyed the double posts tonight! I promise to finally post about my ottoman and cabinet hardware soon!

Wacky Boston-Themed Table!

Yo yo yo.

So I've been a bit under the weather the past few days, so I decided to take it easy this weekend... meaning I'd craft.

Saturday morning I woke up on the ever so comfy couch of my friends' house in Worcester... surprisingly not hungover and even more surprisingly with lots of motivation.  After the trek home, I started Craigslist crawling...

BOOM. What did I find? This weird, but kind of cool table:

How could I pass up this $10 STEAL? It's solid wood and has some pretty badass detailing.

THE PLAN:

I was inspired by this post on Pinterest.  (Shout out to Webster's Chalk and Paint Powder for a SICKKKKK table and the inspiration!) I like to think that I was creative enough to come up with this idea on my own, but I'm not.

Anyways, I went to my usual places: Michaels and Lowe's to hunt down some decoupage stuff, a map, paint, and polyurethane sealer.  DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND A GODDAMN MAP IN THIS COUNTRY?!!!!  Impossible.  I was thinking of doing a cool, antique-y looking map but I couldn't find one. All I could find was a map of Boston, which actually ended up being really cool! Yay Boston!

Side note: The paint man at Lowe's knows me personally. I guess I'm a regular, which isn't so bad.  I am a regular at a pizza place and the liquor store, so I suppose this is a step up.

So I'm back home now, and the table has been cleaned and sanded.  First up: paint the details:

Yup, I used spray paint. Indoors. In the winter.  Probably took a few years off my life. No biggie.

After that dried, it was paint time!!!!

(Insert in-progress paint picture here. Oh wait. Didn't take one. I'm an ass.)

Now on to the map... cutting out the map in a circle was probably the hardest task of them all, sadly.  I had to use a razor blade after the initial cut, but it worked out in the end.  

So decoupage-ing is pretty interesting.  I had never done it before until now.  It's stressful because the paper bubbles and you think it is going to dry that way but it flattens out as it dries.  The only thing that didn't turn out lovely is the folds in the map are very obvious. Oops.

After a coating of polyurethane spray (once again, indoors), it is sealed and ready to go!

This table is so weird, but so cool! And so Boston themed!

What it cost:

Table - $10
Paint - $6
Map - $6
Decoupage stuff - $10
Sealing spray - $6
Paint brushes and rollers: $5

TOTAL: $43

Not too bad! I'm planning on selling this bad boy, so hopefully I can make a little bling bling back :-)

What I learned:

-Maps are hard to find.
-Paint samples are only $3!
-Polyurethane spray smells way worse than spray paint.
-Decoupage-ing isn't so hard.


This was only my Saturday project. Stay tuned for what I did on Sunday!!!!

Retro TV stand

So recently I joined this decade and bought a new TV.  My old gem, though functioning, kept making this high-pitched squeak that made me want to kick puppies.

(Adios old TV! It's been real!)

Yay! New TV! The only problem is that my new fancy-shpansy TV looked RIDICULOUS in my giant TV cabinet.  Which means only one thing... CRAIGSLIST TIME!

I ventured out (in the snow... not my best idea) to get this $10 gem:

Awww yeah.  

So after several snow-induced near-death experiences, I managed to go to Lowe's and Michaels and return with a quart of glossy paint and a variety of decorative paper:

The plan: Sand and re-paint the stand, reface the front of the doors with paper, and spray paint the hardware.  

Everything went well! The only hiccup was getting the paper to stick to the door.  I originally used a tiny bit of wallpaper glue but even that small amount of moisture caused the paper to ripple.  I ended up using plain ol' Scotch tape.  

The final result:

I'm slowly but surely becoming obsessed with this one! I *might* paint it a shade darker at some point, as it doesn't quite match anything in my living room... oops. I also had to completely re-arrange my living room to accommodate the new TV stand (I say this casually but this in itself required a few hours of trying different arrangements, second guessing myself, drinking wine, and calling in my ever-so-patient roommate for second opinions).

What it cost:

-TV stand - $10
-paint - $15
-fresh brushes and rollers - $5
-paper - $3
-spray paint - free! (already had some)

TOTAL: $33

What I learned:

-Maybe I should consider surrounding furniture when deciding on a color...
-I love Craigslist!

I have many more exciting projects to update you all on! Stay tuned for kitchen cabinet hardware, ottoman reupholstering, and a TV cabinet to bookshelf conversion!