threadesque: GUEST POST SUNDAY

GUEST POST SUNDAY

Meet Pam

from

I'm excited for you all to see the beautiful work this talented lady creates. She makes amazing jewelry (I own a few beautiful pieces and love them)! She's sharing a lovely furniture DIY.

ENJOY!

" I see art in the discarded, recycle furniture as well as ideas, weld steel that I can't move without a crane and constantly create with a sliver of humor and a cup of caramel iced coffee. At nine, I discovered mulberries made a perfect watercolor red and realized maybe, just maybe, it's ok to paint outside the lines"

Repurposing or refinishing pieces to create your own functional art requires a must-have tool. A tool that has sent you on missions beyond the stars, built your fortress of sheets draped over the dining room table and turned Mom’s garden into a tropical timeshare vacation for Barbie and Ken. That tool, of course, is your imagination.

So pack your imagination and start looking around you. There are so many places to find a find; at the curb on trash day, in the attic, under rotted boards in a barn, the bowels of your basement or “For Sale Free” online.

I acquired my antique bench from the previous owner of my first home. The 80-something year-old woman insisted the solid maple bench was from a bowling alley way-back-when. I loved this piece for nearly 15 years, but rarely used it. Until now…

As charming as the bench was, it wasn’t comfortable to sit on and dwarfed my 1960’s daybeds. It deserved to get more use and I needed a console for my TV.

This project was surprisingly easy. I grabbed my Milwaukee Sawzall or reciprocating saw (similar to an electric bread knife to us bakers) and “sliced” through the arms and back of the bench. You can pay up to $200 for a saw, but check your local equipment rent-all company to see if they will sell a used one for about $40.

TOOLS

The next step is to remove the undesirable dark stain. I like Zip Strip. It aggressively removes stain and paint finishes. Just make sure you use it in a ventilated area and wear protective glasses/gloves because it is highly toxic. Ideally, make your workspace your garage, a shed or even outside.

I used my belt sander to remove any remaining stain that had soaked into the wood. To achieve a blonde color to complement my living room furniture, I moved my project to full sun and applied bleach to the wood. This is an effective way to lighten wood, but it raises the grain, so final fine and extra fine sanding is necessary. For a fresh finish, I brushed the console with several coats of satin polyurethane.