It'll Wake You Up: Coffee Sack Upholstery

Sometimes I get on these kicks where I just need bright, tropical, calypso colors in my life and I'm only convinced I'll be happy if I surround myself in pops of neon. (I have my melodramatic moments, don't I?) Usually, I'm an earth tone, cozy color kind of girl, but there's always an exception to the rule, right?

The last time the calypso-color-calling-bird sung to me (he's totally the star of the Amazon), I happened to have two old chairs (donated by the in-laws) that were begging for an upgrade. (Now, a forewarning, this happened a while ago and of course, pics are limited. I love the results so much though that I still had to share.)

Here is the before (already sanded a little):



And the upholstery they came to me with:



Underneath which was this beauty:



They are both oilcloth fabrics (read: durable, but so '70s). After unscrewing the seats from the frame, I diligently sanded to rough up all surfaces:



I cleaned and wiped away all the sawdust and got to painting. Everything was brushed on and took about 3 coats. I didn't use a primer. Poor life choice.

Then it was upholstery time, and I opted for some coffee sacks I'd found at Building 19 months earlier. (I washed them in the washing machine before using them. They reeked of coffee and burlap.)  They were graphic and colorful, just what I was going for. I cut them approximately to size, and then staple-gunned the fabric right over the beige oilcloth, wrapping like a present as I went. I screwed the seats back to the chair, et voila! Coffee Sack upholstered chairs that fill the bright color vacancy in my heart.





And over a year later, they are still holding up in our little kitchen.





Have you ever used unusual fabric in usual ways?

(P.S. Last day to vote bar cart or desk!)

Then & Now: Bed Side

After that brief interruption of discussing shelter media, and an attack of the organization monster, we're back to a little bedroom lovin'. No, not that kind.

So I've shown you two projects from the boudoir already: the farmhouse bed, and the rope shelves. Because we completed this redo back in September, I'm going to limit the in-depth info to those two projects, but I just wanted to do a quick before and after of each half of the room to wrap up the redo with a nice fancy ribbon. With scissor-edge curled ends, of course.

Big picture stuff first. Just an FYI, here is a severely not-to-scale mock up of the fh bedroom floor plan:



Before of the bed side of the room:

Cool grey walls, loooooow bed, and stock ikea night stands. Passable, but a little too...dorm room.

After of the bed side of the room:

Deep, dark newburg green walls. Recently built bed newly stained, and farmhouse bedside tables. Mmm mmm good.

A few details about that half of the room. (Yes those are my stuffed animals. Yes, I can't sleep without them. Yes, when Mike first started sleeping over I pretended like I just happened to still have them and they were totally like no bid deal. I told him he could toss them on the floor to get them out of the way and pretended like I was too cool for school. I SO wasn't.)

ANYWAYS, those bedside tables. I mentioned them in the first bedroom post, and after I built them I painted them all white back in February 2011. Here they are pre-detroying painting:

They were never great. I wasn't so hip to the furniture painting scene then (I am indebted to sites like Perfectly Imperfect and Centsational Girl for bringing me up to speed) and I never sealed them after the latex paint. Stuff was always sticking to the top. As in, I'd lay a magazine (I'm a magazine FIEND) down when I went to bed and the next morning when I picked it up, the back cover left a thin coat on the nightstand. Four months after painting. Not bueno. I also made the mistake of painting all surfaces of the nightstand and drawer which equaled STICKY CITY USA. I practically had to prop my foot against the nightstand for leverage when pulling out the drawer. Here is the best before pic I have of them painted (I curse my non-pic taking pre-blogging self!):

Needless to say, I was ready to banish those suckers for scrap. However, in a stroke of goodwill, I decided to give re-finishing a go. I sanded the bejesus out of every surface and probably went through a job pack of 40 grit sanding pads. And if you remember my mantra, SANDING IS BORING. YOU CANNOT EVEN LISTEN TO PODCASTS WHILE SANDING BECAUSE IT IS TOO LOUD, you'd understand how much I disliked doing it.

It was not a fun process, but once I got going I gained steam and would not let those hunks of wood defeat me. After sanding as much as possible, I decided to stain the tops with the Minwax English Chestnut and spray painted the remainder with Krylon Dover White spray paint. Thankfully, I knew better than to paint the bottoms of the drawers. They did not come out perfectly. They are not flawless. But hey, the room is dark and they are covered on two sides by walls and one side by mattress. For all my intents and purposes they look amazing. Cognitive dissonance is a beautiful thing.

 The light above my nightstand is a spray painted find from Mike's grandfather's office in their old house that was torn down recently. (Side note, those Christmas lights are there only for Christmas. When it's the season, I like it to be the season EVERYWHERE I look.)

The mirror on the right is also a find from that old house. I spray painted it Krylon Sun Yellow and, inspired by this Martha Stewart Living article, I E-6000 glued some jute rope to the inside border (Same rope from the rope shelves!). I was a little worried (and so was Mike) about the yellow being too cray-cray in there, but it's grown on me.

So, we still need something va-va-voom above the bed (future project perhaps??), but so far we are smitten with this half of the bedroom.



Have you ever dismissed a refinish only to end up tackling the project and ending up victorious??

From One Bed to Another

So back in September, after the dust had settled from wedding madness I got antsy to redo the bedroom. The bedroom was the first place I tackled when we moved into fh in October 2009 because it was painted a mold green color. Lovely. Here is the bed side of the room in its first iteration:

Then, last Christmas, M made me a bed. Let me say that again, HE MADE ME A BED FOR CHRISTMAS. It is incredible. Yes, I'm bragging. Cause it's AMAZING.

You (the good DIY blog reader that you are),  recognize it as the Ana White Farmhouse bed, and I couldn't have been more elated. I had stayed in Florida (where I'm from) with my family a week longer than he did, and he elfed around and made the bed on the hush hush so it was in situ when I got home. I almost died with excitement. We had been sleeping on an Ikea Malm before, and I was sick and tired of sleeping less than an Oats height off the ground.



The bed lived unfinished in our room for months while I made matching nightstands (also from Ana White), and planned the wedding. (The old bed is still sitting in the basement. Hello Spring yard sale. And the old nightstands have been converted into tool storage in the mud room. They look great with a vice bolted to them.) In October, it was finally time to tackle the bed and the bedroom. I picked the bedding and the wall color right from the West Elm catalog. Theirs:



Ours:

Yes, I took what they had and mimeographed it for our bedroom. So what? I love it. And there was no repainting 4 times over because I hated the paint color I chose, which was a plus. I sanded all surfaces of the bed with 3 grits (40,150 and 300 I think, and sorry there aren't more pics, it was PB i.e. pre-blogging). I used our random orbital sander attached to our shiny new shop vac we got from the in-laws for the wedding.

I cannot even tell you how well that worked. I honestly thought I was going to be dealing with a 1920s style dustbowl in the bedroom and I could nary find a dust particle in the room, even after 3 rounds of sanding! Craftsman for the win.

After sanding, I wiped down the bed and treated it with a pre-stain conditioner for softer woods to help the stain settle more evenly. Then, I wiped on two coats of Minwax English Chestnut, followed by two coats of Minwax Satin Finish Wipe-on Poly et viola! We have finished bed!

Now, let's be honest, this process is never that easy. And, SANDING IS BORING. YOU CANNOT EVEN LISTEN TO PODCASTS WHILE SANDING BECAUSE IT IS TOO LOUD. I did sand and stain while the bed was in the bedroom. Not exactly a back of the label indicated situation...however, I did have the window wide open and we let the place air out for 7 days before moving our stuff back in there. I also propped the bed up on some scrap wood so I could sand and stain the bottom edges without marring the carpet. Not the most foolproof method, but it beat taking the bed apart, lugging it outside, working on it, and then bringing it back in to reassemble. Sometimes convenience beats best practice. This is one of those times.



This was probably the biggest, and in the long run, most permanent change we made while redoing the bedroom (when we eventually move, the bed will go with us to our next bedroom while the rest of the projects may not land in the bedroom next time). We did tackle a couple more projects in there, including this:

Guesses??