Monthly Archives: February 2018

Curb Appeal of a Different Sort

A few summers ago, (back when my kids still wanted to go on bike rides with their mom) I spotted this old dilapidate chair on the curb just waiting to be claimed. To the embarrassment of my kids, I went and knocked on the door of the home it sat in front of and inquired about the chair. Sure enough, it was up for grabs…yay!! I asked if they would mind tucking it in their garage, so I could come back with the van and pick it up. They agreed and I was excited beyond words!

I picked it up and planted it in our garage. Unfortunately, when I had a closer look I realized that the new upholstery would entail more skill than any of my previous projects. There was no way to hide all of the tacks, as I had in the other simple projects I had done. As a result, I let fear get the better of me and avoided it for almost two years. It was only when Tim threatened to toss it that I knew I had to at least give it a try. I took apart the seat and back and used the very old and stinky upholstery pieces as a pattern for the new fabric. The chair frame required sanding just to rough up the surface in preparation for paint. I decided to paint it white (Surprise!  Surprise!) and then got to work reinforcing the seat and adding additional padding (salvaged from our old leather chair).

Once the seat was re-built, it was time to try my hand at covering the seat, back and arms.  I did my best to tack the pieces in place as inconspicuously as possible and then hot glued a simple lace rope around the edges to hide the staples/tacks. On close inspection, it’s certainly not perfect, but to the casual observer it looks pretty good for my first crack at real upholstering. If you asked an expert, I’m sure I did everything wrong, but when you consider this was picked up off the curb and the fabric was on clearance for $7…it’s quite the steal! Love these trash to treasure deals!

*As an after thought, I decided to paint and re-upholster the arm chair that we had kept from the original set we bought with our old antique dining room table. It was an easy job as the seat lifts off and all of the staples are hidden below. (This is the kind of project I like!!)

Love all the detail carved in the wood!
I love the way the chair turned out…not bad for $7!
As an after thought…I did the dining room chair too!

Antique Oak Dining Table Transformation #2!

before and afterTransformation #1:

Many years ago (like maybe 15 or 20), we purchased this very beat up dining room set from a friend’s mom. The set included the table, 4 leaves and 6 chairs for $150. The set was solid oak, but in very rough shape. Initially, we attempted to sand the table down, but it was so badly beat up that we decided to paint it instead. This was back in the “Debbie Travis Painted House” days, and I decided to paint it a metallic silver paint and then “antiqued” it with black. The first transformation was very 90’s and actually looked quite nice. I made slip covers for the chairs and this dining room set served us well for many years. These pictures are pretty old, so they are actually photos of photos, so not the best quality.

BEFORE: Original oak table
BEFORE: Original table leaves
Only shot I have of the table when it was freshly painted, before the chairs were ready.
AFTER: Although you can’t see the table in this picture, when the slip covers were done, it looked pretty good!

Transformation #2:

In 2006, we bought a house through a private sale and the owners were selling off everything because they were moving to Hawaii. We ended up purchasing a few items from them, including a very modern-designed glass table. I loved that table for many years, but eventually the glass just didn’t clean-up the way it used to and I grew to hate it. When we first bought and began using the glass table, I was reluctant to give up the old oak set and so we stored it and moved it to our current home in 2008. It sat covered in dust for many years, but as the glass table lost its lustre (so to speak), I began to think about the old oak table.

sanded table

The sanded table sat in the basement collecting dust for about 2 years before I could convince Tim to buy into my idea!

I stripped the paint and sanded it down to bare wood. Unlike when we did the first transformation, we now owned a belt sander and although not perfect, the finish was much better than the first time around. The other factor working to our advantage was that distressed, beat-up pieces were actually sought after design elements now. However, there was still one major obstacle to this becoming our dining room table for the second time and that was size. Without the leaves, the table was about 42″ square and was way too small for our large dining room. Although we still had the 4 leaves, they had always been a bit warped and I hated the idea of having 4 leaves permanently sitting in the table. I just don’t like the look of it, especially with the condition of our leaves. Eventually, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea…we could convert the table into a plank style table. I love the look of planked tables and the less than perfect leaves would have no bearing on the design since planks and imperfections seem to go hand-in hand. The trouble was I needed Tim in a big way for this project and he did not agree with my idea and refused to cut up the oak table. The condition of the glass dining room table continued to diminish as I continued to plead my case with many pictures of harvest style plank tables from Pinterest and various other sites on the web. It took a couple of years, but eventually he too saw the potential and agreed to take on the project.

He began by determining the ideal plank size. We wanted to get as many planks out of the actual table top and leaves as we could or at least figure out the plank width that would yield the smallest amount of discarded wood. In the end, we cut 10 planks and ended up with a finished table top of 42″ X 64″. Because the original table slid open to accommodate the leaves, there was a gap between the two ends of the table (when viewing from the side) where the leaves would sit. He purchased two long pieces of oak to replace the two original smaller pieces on each side of the table. The ends were fine because the width of the table did not change.  It comfortably sits 6 and we can squeeze 8 around in a pinch. The size is perfect for our dining room and I absolutely love the finished table. We chose to stain it dark and the imperfections only add to the piece. This table is one of my favourite furniture make-overs! I can’t believe that this table is once again, looking so amazing after all these years!

Here is a good shot of the side of the table. The piece running along the side just under the top is the one that had to be replaced on both sides.

Mud Room Mayhem #5: So Many Shoes!!

Of course, there is nothing like the built in shoe storage that we installed in the risers of our new stairs. Tim did an awesome job of custom building the stairs and drawers for the mudroom and I am thrilled with the results, but the reality is, not all of the shoes are going to be put in drawers! What about those shoes/boots that we are wearing on a regular basis? I am not naive enough to think my family is going to hide every pair of shoes neatly away in the stairs, so my solution was a custom boot rack made with scraps of wood and river rock.

DIY Wooden Boot Tray:

I made this simple DIY wooden boot tray out of scraps of wood we had in the basement and then stained it to match the dark hardwood floors. I then purchased a bag of river rock ($8) and filled the tray with rocks. I love the simplicity of the boot rock and the natural element of the rocks. So simple and yet so much more visually appealing that the old plastic boot trays we used prior to the renovation.

What’s Next?

The mudroom reno is nowhere near complete. Aside from some smaller projects and accessorizing, we have three big projects to complete and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. All of them require Tim’s handiwork and expertise and his schedule has made it pretty difficult to make any headway. You can watch for these future updates as we complete the projects:

  • Kitchen Door Frame: We still need to rebuild the door frame between the kitchen and the mudroom (at the top of the stairs).
  • Stair Rails: We have antique newel posts and oak rails to add to the stairs. Because we are using old posts, there is some rebuilding and reconfiguring to make this work. T0 be honest, this job seems a bit daunting!
  • Basement Stairwell Walls: The stairs and walls to the basement from the mudroom are cement. They are poorly made and uneven (of course!) We still need to figure out how to tie the walls into the new design and come up with some sort of facelift for the stairs themselves. Again, lots of work and not a job you can do on a day off!

If if takes until next summer to knock these off that is fine with me, but I am really hoping we can have the mudroom completed before returning to school next September! In the mean time, there won’t be many more mudroom posts!

Mud Room Mayhem #4: Feature Wall

Mud room feature wall

Mud room feature wall (The plant is not really part of the decor, but desperately seeking sunlight and hoping to revive!!)

Have I mentioned how disfunctional this space was? Not only was there no closet, the room was designed in such a way that you really couldn’t even add a nice wardrobe to solve the problem. In the end, I knew the only option that would work for this space was to install open hooks on the feature wall.

Shiplap Feature Wall:

The first step was to prime and paint the newly installed shiplap. I used my favourite, Simply White, by Benjamin Moore.

Shiplap feature wall primed and painted Benjamin Moore Simply White.

Upcycled Coat Hook Rack:

The next step was to install the coat hooks. I decided to make a base to mount the hooks onto. My mission in this mud room project was to incorporate reclaimed pieces that I already had on hand. For this, we used one of the boards from the old piano we had previously dismantled. I think it was the one that sits vertically above the keys and opens automatically when the cover for the keys is opened up. (You can tell I am no musician by my lack of piano lingo). I wanted a ledge on top for art or some other kind of accessory and was fortunate to find an old oak mantel for sale on Kijiji. I actually can’t remember what I paid, but I know it was cheap…maybe $15? So, I painted both the piano piece and the mantel for the top. I bought the antique hooks from Candle & Co. out in West St. Paul. We managed to fit 7 hooks across the middle, so it really provides ample room for the coats we use on a regular basis. Being that it is winter, it is impossible to “stage” it like you see in so many mudroom/entry shots on Pinterest. Our coat rack is pretty full and will remain that way for 6 months of the year. Perhaps by next summer the coat rack might look prettier, but for now it serves the purpose it was designed for….it stores our winter gear!

Re-purposed piano plank + oak mantel
We also managed to find this small oak molding up in the basement rafters. It helped create the perfect transition between the other two pieces.

I tried several different pieces on top of the mantel and in the end I opted for an old bevelled glass window. I love the impact of the dark green in an otherwise very soft colour pallet. The best part was, it was yet another piece I was able to rescue from my basement storage and incorporate into the space at no extra expense.

Upcycled Single Headboard Bench Conversion:

Below the coat rack is a simple bench that we constructed from a $10 Kijiji headboard and more old piano parts. I can’t say I love the bench, but it will do for now and isn’t bad for our first attempt at making a bench. There are so many great repurposed bench designs and for me this would only be about a 5/10 in terms of the look I was going for. I really would have liked a piece with more “weight”, but we are confined to a small space, so I had to stick with a single bed and there weren’t many available at the time. This bed didn’t come with a footboard and my preference would have been to use the footboard for side rails on the bench. All in all, not exactly what I wanted. The wall is tall and a heavier looking, larger piece constructed from a queen frame would look amazing, but I can’t afford to loose the space under the window for extra storage. I will continue to watch for a single bed frame that may be more to my liking, but for now the one we have is fine. If you are interested in converting an old bed into a bench, check out My Repurposed Life for inspiration and detailed tutorials. I always find great ideas on that site!

Upcycled bench

Upcycled bench created from a single bed headboard and old piano parts.

I can’t wait to add a few more accessories when the space is completely finished!

A Look Back:

Couldn’t finish the post without a quick look back to before and after shots of this wall. Oh my….was that awful!!

BEFORE: This is honestly, soooo embarrassing, but yes, we lived with this for almost 10 years!!
AFTER: Pretty dramatic change, so much brighter, pretty and actually serves a purpose in the space!!

Mud Room Mayhem #3: The Shoe-lution!

Creating drawers in the stair risers added the extra shoe storage we needed in the new mudroom design.

Having no closet and dreading the thought of using some sort of messy shoe rack, I had my heart set on hidden shoe storage. I had planned this out long before the mud room make-over was ever really in the works. I had seen this idea years ago on Pinterest and knew that someday my mudroom was going to have drawers in the stair risers to hide the vast array of shoes that constantly littered our mud room floor.

BEFORE: Old brown painted stairs and floor. Hated the brown paint and plain 2 X 4 rail.
Old stairs with landing and curved steps down to mudroom.

Tim had already removed the old stairs from the kitchen down to the mud room. He custom built the stringers and stairs to fit the space between the kitchen door frame and the door leading to the back yard that sits at the base of the stairs. We decided to opt for simple 2″ X 12″ construction for the stairs and then sanded and stained the stairs to match the oak floors. We were super pleased with how the stairs turned out despite the fact that they were made very economically without spending on high end wood.

2 X 12 construction with dark stain
Drawer pre-stain.
The size of drawers varies as the lower stairs obviously can accommodate larger drawers.
Stained drawers. Love the fir base and fronts!
The bottom drawer can fit approximated 9 pairs of shoes…yay!!

For the drawers, Tim re-used planks from our old wooded futon frame for the sides of the drawer boxes and then old 1/4″ fir for the base and drawer fronts. The fir was removed from the walls of an old walk-in closet/storage room in the basement when we reconfigured some of the basement several years ago. We had kept the wood for future projects and it came in handy for these drawers. Although the fir has much more grain and an orangey/red hue, the dark stain took beautifully and I actually love the fact that the drawer fronts stand-out from the stairs and aren’t so “matchy”!

Love the contrast of the dark stain against the paint colour.
You can see the holes Tim drilled in the centre to serve as drawer pulls.
The contrast between the 2 X 10 plank stairs and the fir is quite dramatic, but I love it!
A simple shot of the inside of one of the drawers.

Best of all, the drawers provide ample storage for our shoes, and short boots will even fit when placed on their sides. So thrilled!! Using stair risers for hidden shoe storage might be my favourite Life Hack yet!! Thank you Tim!