I painted, I sanded, I conquered.

We've been busy bees.

A zillion years ago the Bear and I both did woodworking in high school together. 

Not exactly 'together'- together but we were in the same class. 

We exchanged hot, sweaty, teenage glances at each other across the lathes and benches while learning how to make notepad holders, footstools and boxes.

Once school was done, the Bear continued to tinker with occasional woody projects and accumulate woodworking stuff.  

And over the past few weeks we joined forces to do a bit of furniture restoring and it was really fun working together!

One of our first pieces was this old dining table. Purchased off Facebook marketplace for $50.

Our existing dining table was way too big and dark. So I found this smaller 4-6 seat extendable table.

It was covered in a dark, glossy varnish. We sanded the top right back and lightly sanded the base to rough it up a little.

White paint on the base and 3 coats of a clear varnish on the tabletop (with a super light sand between each coat).

We started off with a British Paints low sheen plain white. But this looked kind of dull. It was also a bit thick so we had to add a little bit of water so it would paint on more evenly.

We wanted a nice smooth look but the low sheen was too matte looking. We finished the painted surfaces with varnish as well as the plain pine surface.

It was really difficult sanding to remove the varnish around this ridge so Bear cracked out a whizz bang router and rerouted the edge just a teensy bit.

Oh how sweet! He's loving the plant! Not sweet actually. We can't have any vegetation at cat level anymore as 8Track tries to eat all of it. After this photo, his little pink tongue came out to try and start licking (which is a precursor to nibbling) so I had to quickly whisk this pot back outside.

The next victim was our existing hall table. It's actually my sisters. She started sanding it back, then didn't get the chance to finish. 

We gave it the same treatment. I was kind of going for a 'french country' kind of look.  Because most of the sanding was already done, this was a super fast project.

Then came THE BEAST.

We were sorely lacking in storage space in the kitchen/ dining area. There was a tall shelf in place but it looked messy with stuff piled all over it. Grog, medicines, pots and pans and random kitchen items like a mushroom brush and an overly large Pug wine bottle cork.  And all that grog. Ugh! It looks like we're trashy pissheads! How much gin does a person need? Ok I'm kidding there. I'm not complaining about too much gin.

I found this kitchen buffet & hutch on Facebook marketplace for $70. Almost everybody had one of these in the 80s!

It was partly pine and partly made from chipboard covered in pine veneer. UGH!

We went to Bunnings and bought some new knobs and drawer pulls.

Our plan was to buy some pine planks and glue them together to make a new bench. The old chipboard & veneer bench which was on top of the hutch was worn down almost to the chipboard.

However we found that they had these big benchtop things that had cool 'natural' wavy edges on them for just $85. 

Bear had to go to work this day and we had discussed that I would remove the doors and knobs etc. I ended up dismantling the entire unit into 3 pieces. 

You know when you're in the zone and you just keep going!  

Here's a progress photo I sent him later that day (please excuse the big bold caption)

It was actually alot of work but with 2 of us working and tunes playing on the radio, it flew by.

Because we weren't happy with the first white paint from the table, we went back to the hardware shop and bought a tin of Dulux semi gloss again in plain white. It looked alot better. 

This time for the body of the dresser, the Bear found his old spray painting stuff. It gave a much more even coat and the semi gloss look was much nicer.

In the end we had a bit more to do with the buffet & hutch.

1. It wouldn't fit under an airconditioning unit to we shaved 2cm off the base.
2. Sanded the entire piece.
3. Replaced the bench.
4. Replaced all the knobs and drawer pulls
5. 3 coats of paint and varnish with sanding between each
6. Polished up the glass

It was totally worth it. Doesn't this space look a zillion times better? And we now look like organised and tidy pissheads.

We had a small piece of the bench leftover. So we grabbed this small cabinet which Shane picked up for $10 ages ago. It was finished in a dark brown stain. It was sanded back, painted and he replaced the top with the leftover bench piece.

See what I mean about that wavy edge? I really love that feature. 8track has already found a spot to perch and watch me cook dinner.

And finally we cleared up the Sonofaguns' gaming corner with another 2nd hand piece. This was already cream with a dark brown varnished top. I was happy to buy it and keep as is because by now after 3 weeks of furniture work, I was kind of over it. But it looked out of place so we gave it the same treatment.
The whole area now looks fresh, light, tidy and so much better!

The annoying part is now all that sanding has aggravated my tennis elbow. It's actually 'mouse and crochet elbow' but the doctor says that name change isn't likely to catch on.  So I've had to have a short break from crochet! 😱

I'm not likely to be able to stay away for long! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Louise

🎾 Red Haired Amazona 🎾